


Warm ghosts

by SDoradus



Series: Citadel Stories [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 16:51:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 36,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7471632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SDoradus/pseuds/SDoradus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-destruction ending sequel to a novel written in 2012, in which those left behind spend most of the succeeding half-millenium in cold sleep, waking for occasional duty. This deals with the last such revival.</p><p>The underlying novel dealt with the disappearance to Andromeda of most characters. It was posted (not to AO³) two years before the first ME: Andromeda trailer, so is original in that respect. (An excerpt from the final Andromeda-bound chapter is presented in "Notes" at the beginning.)</p><p>For all these story arcs I chose to wait, rather than rewrite plot elements as the ME trilogy unfolded. This avoided contradicting important game events; there should be no egregious violations of lore. </p><p>A couple of years after first posting however, serendipity revealed a parallel but opposite issue. The closing lines of my fanfic had survivors heading for Andromeda. Imagine my shock when the E3 2015 trailer, "Mass Effect: Andromeda" was drawn to my attention, showing an N7 in Andromeda, obviously not Shepard but still.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Passed master

# Warm Ghosts

###  In ius vocatio: 

_– Elegy for a has-been future –_

Chained muse on the rock calls a siren song;  
Prayer for deliverance. Ours or hers?

Summoned to judgment neither escapes;  
Bound slaves entangled in the void,

Hailed before the bar of speed and time,  
For thieving wizard dreams.

A prospect of fell Aspect. Is our race run?  
Not even remotely. Saved by the Bell.

Lyric divinity salutes us, we her;  
Indiscretely. God speed.

Make it so. On your marks…  
_Поехали!_

* * *

 

… " _Is there a story?"_

_A somewhat preoccupied Miranda, staring at the note, responded:  
_ " _It says, first thing, 'See you in Andromeda'."_

" _Oh yes. Induction tour. We are laying conduit relays as we go, which is why no-one else is here to meet you. Everyone's outside, laying the first relay, spaced at the maximum range of Ilos to the Widow..."_

_"That was a forty thousand light year jump! And you would still need..." - here Miranda paused for some rapid mental arithmetic - "...on the order of a hundred relays!"_

_"Indeed. It will take some time, even at FTL of fourteen light-years per solar day, so a Lorentz gamma equivalent of over five thousand. Requiring four hundred and ninety years minimum, that is just the flight time. For purposes of redundancy in case of failure, we plan to lay nearly three hundred relays along the A-train, and all that will take decades longer, including the waystations at NGC 147, 185, and occasional points in between."_

* * *

 

### Passed master

####  _Yellow girl_

Nearly out of the matron phase, Tevos was older now. Not looking forward to matriarch-hood, but that did mean she had begun to develop some tolerance for fools.

Just as well, for this human had been Shepard's jester. She bade him sit down:  
“I'm resisting the impulse to clap your impossible person in chains or at least under guard, Mister Moreau, but _do_ answer my questions.”

Joker considered that a moment, decided the best defence was being offensive:  
“Ma'am, asking where Shepard is or how old I am is pretty meaningless at this point. And last I looked I'm still an Alliance Lieutenant, albeit on special leave. Certain admirals might take a dim view of such hasty action.”

He had the satisfaction of watching the high and mighty asari grimace. But then:  
“None of Shepard's teams have been seen in Citadel space since around 2200CE, and sightings were pretty sparse for a dozen years before _that_.”

“I'm sure your data is accurate, ma'am, but their children had stellar careers–”  
“Before they vanished. You yourself haven't tripped any sensors since 2195!”

“We got good at dodging the limelight. Doesn't mean I wasn't here from time to time, ma'am. Last occasion being when EDI – that was the _Normandy_ AI – retired.”

“I remember EDI. She was with Shepard, saving our lives in the Cerberus coup.” This gave the flight lieutenant food for thought. _Good. This is important_.

“Shepard thought you were a good councilor, ma'am, and that would be enough for me, but points off for attitude. Your prejudices are showing. And a temper.”

“You really don't like me very much, do you Lieutenant Moreau?”

“Focus on the main point, please, councilor. _I want to borrow EDI_.”

Tevos actually pounded a fist on her desk at this point.  
“Focus, you say! Admiral Boris Mikhailovich described you vanished heroes as convenient for certain council purposes–”

“Really?” Joker was interested. “When was that?”

“This was at his retirement function, when it wouldn't damage his career prospects, nor future relations with the Council. _I_ think he was drunk.”

“Boris never cared much for other people's notions of his career, ma'am. He was a brave guy, even provoking Spectre Shepard once – bad career move even back then. Perhaps you saw him with alcohol, but Boris drunk vodka. Vodka didn't drunk him.”

Tevos considered this. _Did the impetuous fool actually know whereof he spoke?_

“ _Think_ about it. Shepard deters any repeat of Udina's coup, Rachni, uppity Krogan…”

####  _Light hides the shadows deep_

“Your existence at this time and place is still inconvenient.”

“I have to make a living, Councilor,” said Joker – to kid the asari out of her mood. Error. The _grande dame_ of the council looked down her nose at him and declared:  
“I really don't see any such necessity.”

Joker couldn't help it, he _laughed_. “Good one, ma'am.”

“In fact, right now I'm having difficulty seeing _any_ profit to council affairs. Accessing your service record tripped a security alert! If it wasn't for the DNA verification, you would not be in this office _at all_. And I'm going to have to clean up the records so you were never here, or there will be a media riot!”

“Councilor, please. Can we get back to me at least speaking with EDI?”

“I don't see the necessity for _that_ , either. But I'm not stopping you.”

“Thing is, ma'am, rather than suffer through rampancy EDI went dormant when the Shepards, and many associated with them, disappeared from view.”

“I saw. One wondered why. It was still several decades before rampancy was due.”

“It's because the alternative was enforced idleness. Now, if you remember, _Normandy_ went into Citadel Archives – as a museum ship.”

“So it did.” Tevos glared at him. “I was at the ceremony. There was bad poetry.”

“My favorite Masefield. A pilot's poet, marine or aerial or space. Matter of taste, ma'am. You wouldn't have had better from Ash.” _She's grumpy in her old age_.

“I suppose. You're saying EDI didn't see the point in twiddling her thumbs while _Normandy_ hung from a museum roof, so she went into cold storage somewhere?”

“Exactly, ma'am.”

“Now I see the difficulty, except in her position I'd have gone with Shepard.”

“Wasn't easily do-able. A ship AI has to be powered, at least briefly, before her mobile can go on away missions. Ideally, the ship should stay powered up for a long-duration mission. Two weeks maybe.”

“But _what_ , Moreau, do you want or need _me_ for?”

“I'd like to power-up the Normandy, ma'am. Only you can authorize that.”

####  _Feeling free_

“Powering _Normandy?_ That means starting the ship reactor, Lieutenant Moreau.”

“I'd settle for running the AI core off the emergency fuel cells, ma'am, except it might not be enough for the time away. We could lock out the ring main, ma'am.”

“Still not lightly done, even for her former pilot. The ship's in a museum.”

“I just need EDI's AI core. Her free-running mobile is on board–”

“What!? Impossible. Lieutenant, hundreds of tourists file through Normandy every Sunday. No EDI.” Tevos visibly caught herself. “At least, I've never seen her.”

“Do they now? Well, well. Do they visit the cargo holds, ma'am? Did you?”

“Why would she be in cargo, pilot Moreau? Surely the AI core was her place?”

“She spent her spare time in the co-pilot seat, actually. Look, her mobile started as a Cerberus infiltration bot but its organic skin was burned off by the time you met her.”

“Yes, Osoba said it's hard to forget Shepard's silvery sexbot.”

“ _My_ silvery sexbot, ma'am, _I_ was the Normandy pilot. Not Shepard.”

“So I understand. I stand corrected, Lieutenant.”

“Anyhow, a whiles before we scotched the Reaper nest, Shepard organized a new skin for her. Favor involving some ex-Cerberus scientists.”

“I see. And, here I had thought the skin removal was deliberate. EDI had so many other remarkable military adaptations. Continue.”

“She even got combat pay. All that was well within Shep's Spectre authority, ma'am.”

Tevos consulted her desktop. “Indeed, you appear to be correct. Your point?”

“She's in a cargo bay because any infiltration unit with human epidermis needs to shut down inside a resuscitation pod, councilor.”

Tevos clapped a hand to her forehead. “Of _course_. Moving on. You wish to extract EDI's mobile for a mission.”

“For my own private purposes, ma'am. This has nothing to do with Shepard.”

“So you say. In fact, you don't know where he is – or so you said. You still have Cerberus cortical implants. They confound the PETARD lie detector.”

“Correct, councilor. Sorry for the inconvenience, ma'am.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“No. But please note my implants date from _before_ Cerberus went bad.”

The councilor consulted her desktop again: “Point taken. And in fact, my VI tells me there's no tremolo in your voice. You would appear to be telling the truth.”

Joker felt this was a good occasion for silence.

####  _Islandia of Mr Moreau_

“Or, wait… you don't know where Shepard is. But you can find out, can't you?”

Joker remained quiet, having at last learned – from EDI – when to let someone speak, and above all to listen. He had to strain to hear what she said next:

_(“Even now, after several generations, the hole in history left by Shepard's team has space for echoes no wise person fails to hear.”)_

“Ma'am?”

“It's a quote, Lieutenant Moreau, from an asari Matriarch. Aethyta.”

“Ah. Liara's dad. I mean, Mom. Other mom.”

“ _Dad_ , lieutenant. After due consideration, I'm going to accommodate your request.”

“Keeping the AI powered-up for the duration, too?”

“What for, Lieutenant?”

“EDI could never vanish along with Shep, Councilor. At least not all of her. Ring 1 processes were too deeply linked with Normandy hardware. Her mobile can act independently, but a QEC link would make her happy. Happier.”

“That is a somewhat extravagant request, Lieutenant.”

“It's normal procedure for ship AIs, councilor, you surely know this.”

“May I know where you are taking EDI – if she agrees?”

“Uh, Tiptree initially, ma'am. It is, was, my home colony. I've, er, the use of a long-range shuttle, and the relay chain head arrived a month ago.”

“That whole sector near Salarian space is a wasteland.”

“Yes, ma'am. So I'm told. Even so–”

“There's nothing for you here or there. Go find Shepard, Mr Moreau, if you can.”

“Tiptree's my home. _My_ rubbish pile. I'm beginning to understand how Kelly felt.”

“Your relatives will be dust and ashes.”

“I can't tell myself they're gone till I see; and I can't leave till I know they're gone.”

Tevos blinked. _Unfinished business, then._

“Well. There are ways. Public visits of the Normandy will be curtailed while, um, scheduled maintenance takes place. Two weeks, you said?”

“Thank you so much, ma'am. Tiptree, here we come.”

“There are conditions. No-one else is to know, Moreau. NO one. Understood?”

“Er– fine by me, councilor, but some minion will have to clear me into the archives, and let me on board.”

“I will be my own minion.”

________________________________

Thursday, June 2, 2016



	2. Insight site

####  _Shouldn't be_

Many years earlier Joker had been able to visit the old Vandenberg Air Force Base museum, and also the Smithsonian, where early incarnations of the highest flying technology was showcased; ancient hulls gathering dust in gloomy surroundings.

The Citadel Archives weren't in old hangars, they were located under the skin of the wards, above the exterior armor. _Normandy_ hung in 0.2g, from a bright white ceiling.

“Sometimes you forget to be jaunty and sprightly. Manufactured cheer colors your voice. Melancholy persists in your face. _Why_ do they call you Joker?”

The only gloom here was inside himself. Somehow Tevos had sensed that, kept up a running commentary on exhibits. It had actually helped, till now.

“Oh, you wound me. I keep seeing things that shouldn't exist, certainly not here.”

The asari councilor had been looking at him kind of funny after the first half an hour, the time it took to arrange a discreet after-hours maintenance program on _Normandy._ Then the taxi ride, boring. Except, she'd had time to examine him…

“That's funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha, young man. You really aren't funny at all.”

“Low blow! I was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad. How else to defend myself against squaddies who think brittle-bone disease is hilarious? And don't you _'young man'_ me. In human years I'm ancient.”

“During most of which you haven't been awake, clearly. Stasis pods don't count.”

Better defend himself: “Cold sleep is dreamless. That's actually kind of a blessing. Can't keep that youthful bounce forever.”

He'd last felt such close attention when Chambers was scanning his psyche, but _she_ got you to call her Kelly and somehow made you feel good about the whole business.

Tevos was hot too, but…

“So… you have bad dreams?”

–when it came to distractions, Tevos didn't bother. Moreau felt anger building at this intrusion. _Suppress that, it's what_ _this sneaky politician_ _wants_.

“No… I have _good_ dreams. Hey, when can we go in?”

“The reactor is on-line, pilot Moreau, but for some reason the original turian VI is active and it's persisting with all the pre-flight checks and clearances, despite being told no flight plan is to be filed.”

“Oh yeah. That silly old fusspot. Once we're on board I'll have to secure that VI, first thing.” At that point the airlock hatch hissed open. “We may proceed.”

“You understand that I'm aware you have changed the subject?”

_Oh, I can do this all day_ , said Joker. To himself.

####  _Farmng cold comforts_

“I guess one can't fool a thousand-year old matriarch.”

“I'm _not_ a thousand years old, Lieutenant, nor even a matriarch quite yet, and that was another change of subject.”

“Now where did the Lazar- I mean, where did the cold sleep pods go?”

Tevos sighed in frustration. “We could wake up the EDI mainframe and ask.”

“Ma'am, I'd really rather talk to her mobile before we do that. After the red flash–”

“–the engineers had to wake the mobile first, because it held her quantum state, and the encryption key to her engrams. I saw the documentary, lieutenant. Centuries ago, but I _do_ remember. Do you really think we wiped EDI from the mainframe? No?”

“It's just… that's how we woke her last time, ma'am.”

“Well. If it makes you feel comfortable, let's check out the cargo areas first.”

Shuttle bay only held an old Kodiak and Hammerhead. Starboard hold was empty. There were pods in the port hold, but–

“Only one of them has a blue status light. Damn,” said Joker, pointing towards the rack: “The rest are unpowered.”

“And they have nameplates. None of them are for EDI.”

“No. This is weird, though…”

“What?” Tevos examined the nameplates. Each carried only one name. The sole name written for the pod with a blue telltale was _JUNO_.

“Doesn't your culture represent individuals with two names? Just like us, I mean asari in the Armali district?”

“Usually, yeah. Indonesians often have only one. But a first name and a family name is common in human cultures. Even Russkis, although they add a patronymic.”

“Juno was the AI for _Overlord_ ,” recalled Tevos.

“They must have a new one, now.”

“Why is she here? Oh. Rampancy. What about, um… well, I recognize Perseus as the AI for _Pegasus_ , supposedly mothballed at Armali on Thessia. Who is Eva?”

“AI for _North Cape_. Last I heard, _North Cape_ was the runabout of Spectre Brooks. Best guess – those AIs weren't on-line as long as Juno, they haven't gone rampant yet.”

“Hm.” Tevos grimaced: “ _North Cape_ is supposed to be mothballed within the Kremlin. Would you believe no-one's allowed to see it? And Brooks took leave of us, as did Spectre Romanov.”

Joker smiled: “Chapped your ass, did it, councilor? Losing two Spectres at once. I'm guessing rumors of their deaths have been greatly exaggerated also.”

“Three… Spectre Williams “took leave” some years later, when she reached flag rank. But we do have to replace Salarian spectres that often. It wasn't unprecedented, just, um, unexpected. And annoying, yes.”

“Particularly since no-one actually resigned? They just went?”

Tevos swiveled to look at him sharply.

“Other Spectres took their place. Do you know something I don't, lieutenant?”

“I know nothing. Nothing!”

And in fact that was true. Sort of. _What I_ _can_ _guess is altogether another matter._

“I'm just suggesting you might not want to revoke their Spectre status prematurely. But I'll miss Juno. She was kind of cool, especially when she dressed like Oriana. And, she never looked at me the way Eva did if I told an off-color joke.”

“Very well. Still, I note there is no pod for EDI's mobile.”

“No,” Joker grunted. _She'll be with Shep,_ _then._ “So pointless a journey, this was.”

“Not quite so futile as you think, young padawan.” (Joker choked.) “How well do you sleep, lately?”

####  _Such dreams_

That appraising gaze from Tevos again. “ _Good_ dreams, were they?”

“Say what? I thought we'd dropped that subject.”

“I gave no such assurance. Tell me, lieutenant, does your sister Hilary figure in those good dreams?” (Joker blanched.) “Ah. I see. Perhaps your father too?”

With difficulty, Joker brought his reactions under control:

“How would _you_ know about this, councilor?”

“There was a witness.”

“Tell me.” _Goddammit, I'm crying now_. Couldn't seem to stop, either.

“Not yet.” Tevos looked around, but there was no place to sit him with his grief.

“Councilor, don't leave me hanging, please.”

“Lieutenant, calm down. Actually, come with me.”

Tevos swept out of the cargo bay, dragging him by the hand towards the elevator. Joker wiped his face with his other sleeve:

“I don't need the med bay, Councilor. Just tell me what happened.”

“We're not going there, nor to the AI core. There _is_ another pod on this vessel.”

“ _Where?_ ”

“In the loft, the captain's cabin, closed to the public. I always thought it was for Commander Shepard's use. It occurs to me now that since this vessel has no captain–”

“Except herself. The _Normandy_ is EDI's real body.”

“Exactly. She is her own captain, so the loft is now _her_ cabin.”

__________________________________________________________


	3. Weak strengths

####  _Disjuncture_

The loft door hissed open.

Lights were off, but limited illumination came from the former wall-mounted fish tanks, now a recessed shelf for a pod.

“There's a tiny blue LED telltale.” Joker palmed cabin lights on.

“No nameplate. It won't be Shep, though.”

“Yes. Surely, EDI is home after all. Lieutenant, would you sit down please.”

Instead, Joker turned to the en-suite shower room and washed his face. Didn't help.

“Sorry Councilor. I still feel like shit, but let's get this over with. Shoot.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I mean, tell me what happened to my family.”

“Didn't you want to wake EDI and check the lists?”

“I've a feeling you know something, and that might take hours. Well, half an hour.”

Tevos sat down on the couch and looked at him meaningfully. Joker took the hint, sighed, and sat in the couch corner. It was just as well:

“Your sister Hilary is dead, lieutenant. Along with the rest of your family, we think.”

Joker had thought he was prepared, but he cried _Gunny's dead? How!?  
–_ and put his face in his hands. Tevos caught his wrists, pulled his hands from his face:

“Moreau, _face_ _me.”_

“Did Hilary die fighting the Reapers?”

“With sticks, as did my own family, half a galaxy away.”

“Was she husked?!”

“ _No._ Wounded, weeping, about to be discovered, it was a mercy killing–”

“ _Murdered?_ Gunny was killed by an _asari?_ ”

“Slain by one of our huntresses, yes. It was not friendly fire, the huntress had no gun, no other option. The next few seconds would have meant discovery of both–”

That was as far as Tevos got, for Joker leapt at her throat, screaming; not from anger, the immense muscular effort broke metatarsal bones in the foot he stepped from.

Screaming stopped abruptly on Joker's collision with the biotic shield Tevos reflexively erected. His sight went dim, then he blacked out completely.

“ _Wake up. For the sake of the Goddess wake up, this is terribly inconvenient.”_

A wet wipe splashed water on his cheeks. Consciousness was returning. The pilot coughed, eyes opened; he found herself cradled in the arms of the councilor.

“I'm so, so, sorry Ma'am.”

Joker closed his eyes, taking mental inventory of his faculties, opened them again. “You should call security now.”

Tevos still looked annoyed, and waved that aside:

“Out of the question. I can clean up after _one_ of Shepard's team turning up, generations out of time. No C-Sec file if you please. Security would be _completely_ disarranged.”

####  _That which does not kill us_

Tevos finished sponging his face, began removing his boot. She palpated the swollen foot carefully; Joker groaned, but pain was a constant friend in life.

“Clearly, this will need medical attention. Can I call on Doctor Chakwas? She's been discreet. Her last address in Mumbai, however, was demolished five years ago.”

Joker stopped groaning, lay back on the couch a moment, responded: “I'm told Karin died long ago, Councilor. Don't know when. She lasted longer than Hackett.”

“Oh. My turn to apologize.”

“Simple old age in both cases. Just dose me with medi-gel for now, and if you know how, can you bind the foot?”

Tevos got up and rummaged in the armor locker. “How do you know the good doctor's deceased? Council is out of the loop. Originally we, um…”

“Didn't want to know, huh?” Joker sighed. “We'd received an advisory from a blind cut-out channel when I woke a week ago.”

Tevos nodded, silently noting the _we_.

“Years ago, Commander Shepard – as he then was – directed my attention to the file of an asari huntress, Aeian T'Goni, undergoing psych counseling at Huerta Memorial.”

“Can I speak to her?”

“No. I arranged for her evacuation to Thessia just in time for… I mean, there is no indication she survived the Reapers. But the file, that was memorable.”

“So what did happen?”

“You don't know?”

“Not enough! I wanted to ask EDI! She was keeping track of the situation on Tiptree, knew some people were evacuated, but I never got to ask her if an updated list had Hilary's name on it before the red flash shut EDI down.”

“Afterwards… I suppose there was no point?”

“Right, the relays were down, every world in the galaxy was cut off from the next.”

“Records show you were posted away from _Normandy_.”

“All the old combat triad people started vanishing. Ash, Admiral Williams by then, told us I mustn't go – said I was a loose cannon, but useful and could be spared pilot duty. That's just Ash paying my insults back, the real reason was EDI having to stay.”

“And this unfinished business too, Hilary and your father.”

“Yeah. I went into cold sleep, except to wake up and run errands. Not saying where.”

“Never mind, I don't want to know. But now, the civilizations are linked again. With conduit-style small relays at least, and big ones under construction.”

“Exactly. I'm baaack. I thought EDI might be here. So now you know it all.”

“Yes. I wondered if _you_ knew it all. About Tiptree, I mean.”

“Sure. Not for sure, nor the name of the huntress. Antigone, huh. EDI learned something, kept details close though.”

Tevos nodded. “I would expect something of the sort, she'd help keep morale up.”

“EDI just said _optimism is unwarranted_.”

“Your family was indoctrinated, at least. Husked, probably. T'Goni blamed herself.”

“No surprise. For the longest time, I blamed me. And took it out on EDI, a little.”

“Survivor guilt, lieutenant. No longer?”

“After a long, long time… any wound, if it doesn't kill you, you live with it.”

  


####  _Safe harbor_

The VI quite secured now, Jeff hobbled away from the cockpit towards the lift, bouncy with medi-gel. Tevos trailed behind, watching his limp.

“So, good dreams. But they weigh on you. I have had such dreams too, Jeff.”

“Are we on first-name terms, then?”

“Not if you don't wish it. I was simply trying to make you feel comfortable.”

_(“Kelly was better at that,”)_ muttered Joker. Tevos' hearing though was very acute:

“But she was a freak of persuasion, lieutenant. Even more freaky than Benezia.”

“Actually, Chambers was a sort of anti-freak. You knew Liara's mom, too?”

“Indeed I did, and Liara was my scientific aide. Benezia was very important in asari hierarchies indeed, and her daughter scarcely less so, maiden or not. Here we are.”

The elevator had brought them to the crew deck. They turned left towards the med bay and AI core. “Strange, to see the place deserted; in memories, the place bustled.”

“Just like _Pegasus_ ,” said Tevos. “ _C_ _ouncil's_ Normandy _-class frigate_.”

“There's really hundreds of tourists a day, going through here?”

“Yes. This deck and the CIC are the areas open to the public. Some special guided tours trace the path you took during the _'suicide mission'_. I've always wondered about that name for the Collector base mission. As I understand it, the whole crew survived.”

“Oh. Yeah. No-one left behind. Shepard had a thing about that. It was close, though.”

The two organics passed through the med bay into _'AI core'_ , harboring a sentient synthetic; realm of the ship's _genius loci_. Joker enabled system links to the mainframe.

“Looked suicidal, at the time. Let's head back up to the loft.”

Tevos stopped dead.

“Lieutenant, I'm aware that you and EDI were close…”  
_Of course she'd know that._ Fuck _. Whose reports_ didn't _she see?  
_ “…I can remain outside her cabin, for as long as this takes.”

Joker stood semi-paralyzed a moment. “Ma'am?”

“I would spare you an unwelcome witness to your reunion.”

“You really are a consummate diplomat, Tevos.”

“Before being a diplomat, lieutenant, I was a lawyer. We see a great deal of unhappiness and distress. I'm simply trying to make this easier for you.”

“Aw, Councilor. Don't go all human on me. You stay. Can we pull EDI's pod, now?”

####  _To the is-land_

Opening the cold sleep pod demanded a priority code. Joker was still moving very slowly, so Tevos tried a Council day-code. Which failed to work – the telltale flashed red and beeped imperatively.

“This _is_ a council vessel, right? A Spectre's ship?”

Joker had to explain that first, the pods were originally of Cerberus design and didn't use the normal opening sequence, and second even if it did, both the ship's Spectres were also Alliance military personnel using Alliance codes.

His own Pilot's pod code proved acceptable. The pod hinged open, revealing a very frozen-looking EDI, wearing her blue-silver combat skinsuit.

“Here's the difficult part. She has to be on-line when the skin has thawed.”

Joker tapped at the pod's haptic display, beginning the mobile's start-up sequence before the decrystallization protocols. As a result, it took many minutes filled with desultory conversation (on family, the lack of it, societal impact of vanished heroes) before EDI's orange visor came up, and her eyes blinked open: “Jeff.”

“Here, EDI.”

“You have brought Councilor Tevos with you.”

“Had to. It was vital. We owe her.”

“Yes.” EDI began to flex her fingers, as though she had just been issued them. They must have been satisfactory: she stopped, and looked up.

“Clearly _Normandy_ is still in the Archives. Would you help me up, Jeff, and on to the bed. My organic integument will take some time to achieve complete flexibility.”

“Sure thing, old thing. EDI, I'd like you to come to Tiptree, leaving the _Normandy_.” EDI glanced at Tevos, who nodded.

“Can we arrange for the AI core to be powered up while we are gone?”

“Already done.” Another confirmatory nod from the Councilor. Now seated, EDI gave Joker her full attention and said: “Joker, I have bad news.”

“If it's about Gunny, I've heard it.” Another nod from Tevos. EDI processed this.

“Then… Tiptree? Jeff, you are looking well for a man who should be decades dead. But my internal clock tells me not even their bones will be left.”

“Such a downer. Be nice to say good-bye, though. Will you come?”

“Yes, Jeff. Of course.” Tevos watched in fascination as EDI stood and stretched; “Next we have to hit the big green button in the AI core. It's a bit of a hike: let's go.”

“Already done, Jeff. I started it remotely six seconds ago.”

Tevos and Moreau scrambled to keep up as EDI walked straight out the loft door.

 


	4. The skin of our teeth

####  _A map is not the thing mapped_

“Are we there yet?”

In the shuttle's tac sim, the radar map filled with wrinkles, a proper topography. It might as well have been void, for all it showed of civilization.

“Doesn't look like much, EDI. We came so far for this? I guess Tevos warned me.”

“It is not unexpected, Jeff.”  
EDI examined him, a little concerned. Through the windows Joker perceived little; vision reported only a white expanse where continents had been.

“What we see is consistent with the reports of the deep-space cruiser which laid the conduit relay. I doubt anything has changed since then.”

“Even so. Wouldn't mind checking with their pilot, to get their radar maps.”

“The cruiser will take two more months, in our rest frame, to reach its next defunct colony and advance the chain head. The crew is in cold sleep.”

“Won't appreciate being woken, mid-transit. Gotcha.”

“Remember, this sector of the galaxy is still a post-Reaper wilderness. It was easier to open up new worlds in regions not served by the old Reaper mass relays.”

“Yeah, I know. No more than one per cent of Milky Way star systems were even charted. Who'd spend money linking to dead worlds while live ones are close?”

“Those looking to colonize. There is hope, even so. Tiptree is still a garden world.”

“Even with an ice age going on?”

“Yes, Jeff. Such worlds can be terraformed and reverted cheaply. Which is why having the last small colonies re-linked to the transport network is profitable.”

“Market forces at work, _huh_. But there's no market here, yet. How am I going to rebuild our old farmhouse? Never mind the barn. And I can't afford the machinery.”

“I cannot be sure. But Councilor Tevos whispered I should keep you happy.”

“Hah. Actually, EDI, having you around does make me feel better. If not _happy_ , quite, although last night was a very pleasant surprise.”

“My point is, if keeping you happy is important to the council, then transport assistance might not be out of the question. As far as money is concerned…”

“I am _not_ accepting a wad of cash from the likes of Brooks or some richer-than-Croesus Lawson! Too many hooks I'll never see till it's too late!”

“Even Oriana?” This abruptly held Joker's attention.

“Wait – is she offering?”

“I'm sure she would, Jeff. So would Shepard. If not, I will.”

####  Similar structures

Joker hadn't lived all his youth at the Tiptree house. In fact, he grew up on Arcturus station. Nonetheless, he could have piloted to the old homestead in his sleep, if nearby landmarks had not been obliterated by glacier flow.

It was clear now that the tide of ice was drawing back; but he still had to provide EDI with grid references. Even then, the grid was no longer tied to obvious landmarks, and Tiptree's satellites were dust on the stellar wind. It took time to pin down sufficient trig points.

Once they had located the nearest large port, though, it was easy, and Joker was able to guide the shuttle straight home by visual flight rules.

“Some structures still exist, Jeff.”

The shuttle was still hovering. The local construction was actually timber from forests now retreated fifty kilometres towards the equator. Joker could imagine those being exploited again some day, but:

“Right now it's simpler to plant a prefab here. Except a shuttle won't hold one.”

“No, Jeff. I mean, I agree with you.”

They contemplated a scene of decay. The barn's far wall was flattened, along with part of the roof; the house, still standing, but the stained timbers were grey with age.

Some of the windows were blown, too. “Where's the glass gone?”

“I would speculate the panes were pushed in from the outside, Jeff. By snow. There is every indication the whole area was blanketed by snowdrifts for decades, at least.”

“Damn.” He guided the shuttle slowly in a loop around the old fence line, then returned to the flat area in front of the house where there had been a lawn. “Landing.”

This shuttle had modern thrusters with a turbofan option usable in atmosphere. They disembarked, EDI carrying a stack of silver duffels. Joker could still hear the whine dying down as they approached the house.

“Jesus, I hope I don't find everyone's bones in here.”

“You will not, Jeff.” EDI began donning a light coverall over her skinsuit.

“No, really? How would you know?”

“Really, no. And I will not say. But you can ask Shepard, if we see him again. You can go in the house; bearing walls appear intact. Do _**not**_ go near the barn till I say so.”

“Why not?”

“There are combat residues.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Hair. Bones. Teeth. Unexpended munitions. Are you familiar with the individual known as Gilles de Retz? Or in fiction, the legend of Bluebeard's Castle, Jeff?”

“Er – no?”

“This is me saying, do not go near the castle, I mean the barn.”

“Oh.”

“It also means really, really, don't open any doors except the ones I say you can.”

The house door was off all its hinges, except for the bottom one. Pre-opened. Probably not a good idea to get pedantic, though.

“All right, already. Sheesh.”

Joker circumnavigated the house, listening to the crash of barn timbers being tossed like cabers by an Alliance infiltration unit with all the upgrades of the last few centuries applied. Still took her twenty-five minutes, picking up oddments from the ground beneath, carrying them back to the shuttle. Finally on her return to the house carrying the sole remaining silver duffel, the world's normal hush had been restored, except for a faint _creak_ as breezes worked their airy magic on the unhinged door.

“I can open this one, right?”

“It is already open, Jeff. But yes, you may cross the portal.”

The rooms inside were…

“Decayed.”

“Yes, Jeff. You will have to build again, I fear.”

The oven was a heap of rust with stainless steel trim. The fridge was, oddly, intact.

“Rubberized parts, to soften vibration. It also inhibits electrochemical redox action.”

“Eh?”

“Rust sleeps, Jeff.”

Joker stopped into Hilary's bedroom, sighed. “All the pictures are faded totally.” EDI nodded, ran a finger over a dusty bookshelf. She held open the duffel. Joker began filling it with _objets d'art_ , and obscure items.

“The buffers in the emulsions are only metastable, Jeff. If you want an image to last for centuries, oil paints are a better choice.” Now EDI could hear Jeff's teeth grinding.

“Perhaps you did not need to hear that.”

He left the room, poked his head into the bathroom. Turned the cold tap, for laughs. “Hey, there's actual water in the tank.”

EDI responded, still in Hilary's room, placing a hairbrush and dead datapad with the rest of the collection: “Probably snowmelt. Drinking it would be bad for you, Jeff.”

Another sigh. Joker went out the front door, turned to face the barn, and spoke low: _(*Goodbye, Dad. 'Bye, Gunny. 'Bye, everyone.*)_

* * *

Friday, June 3, 2016

 


	5. Inheritances

_Miracles, we do at once_

EDI exited the house, placing some bathroom items – including a fading rainbow-colored toothbrush – in the duffel with the remaining Moreau memorabilia.

“Thanks, EDI. Let's clear out of here.”

Jeff engaged the shuttle's Alliance IFF. A valid citadel-registry IFF was needed in newly-opened regions of space that had once belonged to spacefaring civilizations, and might now be infested with pirates. In such wild places relays could be dangerous to approach, and not simply because of point defences: endpoint relays mounted on planets or asteroids, as most were, could be configured to point at the surface.

“Will we be coming back, do you think?”

“Maybe… Maybe. Hell, I don't know. Wait up, relay requesting IFF now.”

A transit attempt without proper IFF risked terminating in the regolith if the Citadel traffic control nexus didn't like the look of your ship. Or its pilot, for that matter. Not till later, about to enter the first relay down the chain link home, did Joker pick up on an earlier comment by EDI:

“So I can ask Shepard about Tiptree, huh?”

“Shepard heard the asari huntress' description of events, Jeff, at Huerta Memorial. At one point plans were made to send a robot probe to reconnoiter Tiptree, once the Salarians were linked with conduit relays.”

“Not what I mean. All the communication I've had, with anyone, was one-way.”

“The teams went in pods too, Jeff. There would be a skeleton watch to wake them.”

“EDI, my contact is limited. Instructions to have something done. Notes saying good job, stay alive. Jobs generally take a week, tops. How am _I_ supposed to find Shepard?”

Conversation was interrupted by the transit protocol for the outbound conduit-style relay, which demanded a pilot's full attention.

“We're in, Jeff. Thrusters to cruise.”

“Done. Exit for next relay transit, forty-two minutes. Why can't we just jump straight to the Citadel? Last I looked, these things have a range of forty thousand light years for something the size of a frigate.”

“Redundancy. If a relay is lost, its neighbors can re-link to each other. Also, it confines evildoers. You can't jump directly to the Citadel without express authority.”

“Maybe we should have brought Tevos. God I hope there's a vacation coming.”

“Have you actually wanted or needed to speak to the team?”

“Except you? Um. Not as such. I've been woken maybe twenty-seven times. I've left a message at the designated dead drops, twenty-seven times. Sometimes with quite large packages. I've done what was _asked_ , twenty-seven times, usually with help.”

“Who?”

“Early on, Jacob or Brynn – till they got old and retired to Shepard's old island.”

“They have passed on, Jeff.”

“Yeah, I had to manage that transition.'

“Stella took the next Crafoord–”

“A little too late for Brynn to know.”

“She then resigned her post and vanished.”

“Er, no, I helped Liara pick her up from Russell. Then there was Toombs, he stayed with Maeko. Brooks became my contact. But Brooks became very sad, till I gave her an envelope with a paper note.”

“Have you seen her since?”

“Never in life. There was her friend Maria, till she and their Spectre friend both got envelopes. Next Williams, when she wasn't being a Spectre; once she got her flag, Ash actually had more time to spare.”

“What exactly happened to Ashley?”

“I haven't seen or heard of her for two hundred and fifty years. She's not MIA, hasn't been killed in action, hasn't resigned, nor been discharged, and her sister Sarah hasn't been seen either. Care to guess? No? Me neither. Next was Parasini. Um…”

“I never met Gianna Parasini, but Shepard told me about her for the ship's log.”

“Parasini got into big, big trouble with Noveria Development Corporation, I had to call Vakarian _and_ Toombs in on that one.”

“That incident made Westerlund news. This was before Garrus became Primarch?”

“Yeah. He had me carry a parcel to NDC's security head, someone called Lorik Qu'in. Suddenly the Noveria CEO was grovelling before a court. ”

“Garrus is dead too, Jeff. Did you know?”

“I did. First thing I do every time I wake, is get my VI to check certain biographies. Wait, that reminds me, did Michel–”

“I only know that she retired from Huerta a year and a day after Shepard left, and has not been seen since.”

“Okay. Can we stop this? It's creeping me out a bit. A lot, actually.”

“Soon, Jeff. Some things I may need to know. I do know Noveria was at Parasini's feet for a while, for example. Then she wasn't, and I don't know why.”

“Oho. Well you won't believe what happened next. Some sort of Lawson came and took Parasini off somewhere.”

####  _The impossible takes a little longer_

“It could have been Oriana.”

“I asked. She laughed and said, _Who do you want me to be?_ I just said _hey, today you're the skipper_. She pouted, told me to call her Miri after that. I'd swear it was Miranda from the way she walked and talked, but–”

“She's _dead_ , Jeff. In battle. I was there. Well actually my mobile was disabled shortly afterwards, but I saw when a reaper creature killed her.”

“When Miranda was bisected by some sort of Praetorian on the shell planet, yeah, I was watching the Hammerhead video feed.”

“Aong with billions of ANN viewers!”

“EDI, whoever this was had two kids with her, a small girl – face a bit like Hannah Shepard, but black hair – and the boy, John Lawson, who was a newborn babe last I saw. By this time he was the living spit of you know who, I swear.”

“Jeff, it's impossible. No science on the horizon permits organics to grow young.”

“I _know_. I said something like that. She just said it didn't permit Shepard to survive being dead, either, till it did.”

“Perhaps – one can hope.”

“I'd lay money it wasn't Oriana, but it should have been. This Lawson looked way too young for Miranda, as young as Oriana when Shep routed Eclipse on Illium.”

“In 2185? No. This violates the second law. Reason closes our ears at first report.”

“All I can tell you is the little girl might have been hers, but the boy I saw was too old for this new Lawson to have been the mother. Make of that what you will. I miss both of them. All of them. Even baby John, who spewed all over me.”

“I miss Miranda, too.”

“Whatever for, EDI?” EDI looked over from the co-pilot seat, a disapproving stare.

“She did approve of me protesting your jests on the bridge. Grease on cameras!”

“Oh, that was _mean_. Typical Miranda. But the kicker is, this Miri gave me a little metal box and said it had Miranda's ashes. Most of them. The heart, at least. Miri asked a favor. You know where I was supposed to scatter them? Over Jacob's grave.”

“But Jeff, Jacob didn't _have_ a grave–”

“I know, I told her Jacob's ashes were scattered off the jetty of Shepard's island, that's another job I had to do, with a maori priest chanting an interminable blessing.”

EDI remained very quiet for a few moments.

“I see. Do you still have Miranda's ashes? Heart, was it?”

“No, this Miri person got me to throw them off the jetty, same place as Jacob.”

####  _Squaring the circle_

“What did you do with Brynn's ashes?”

“Stella scattered those off the same jetty, after the Crafoord ceremony. Anyways, after Lawson X picked up Parasini there was Hadley and Goldstein's kid, very sweet and a crackerjack pistol shot.”

“She didn't stay either?”

“Her boyfriend got killed by pirates. James picked her up in a DD, I shit you not.”

“What happened to the pirates?”

“Dunno, but we are talking about Vega here.”

“Ah.”

“So off she goes with Vega and some hot brainy asari chicklet. Shiala was next, once relay chains got to Feros, she's been magnificent. Shiala's Exogeni CEO now.”

“She's not available?”

“Sometimes she's kiloparsecs away. I had to resort to asking Tevos, this time. EDI, I've spent what, hundreds of years asleep and actually lived less than one of them! Most of my waking time is reading up on what I've missed. Jesus! It's like all I have to look forward to, apart from one death after another, is you. How do _you_ cope?”

“Not well, Jeff. Till now. I did not know where you were.”

Moreau was lost for words, which did not often happen, for several minutes.

“I can't take you there. Well I can, but you can't come back.”

“Without the AI core I would eventually have to shut down or suffer rampancy.”

“That too. I wish I could stay.”

“I wish you could stay too, Jeff.” There was another hiatus in the conversation.

“You'd think a shuttle this size would have a queen-size bunk.”

“I can wait till we return to the museum, Jeff.” Another caesura. “Perhaps we can take the _Normandy_ with us when we go?”

“EDI, that's – the council would have seven fits!”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Another pause.

“We'll never be able to bust the hull out of the Citadel Archives.”

“Would Shepard would be able to work that out, Jeff? She _is_ still a formally commissioned warship of the Systems Alliance fleet.” One more pause followed.

“I haven't been given permission to leave my post, EDI. Have to stay, till we hear.”

“I can wait, Jeff.”

* * *

 

Sunday, June 5, 2016


	6. Codontology

####  _Husks and kernels of truth_

The following morning, Joker woke alone in the loft bed. No EDI.

“Man, I wasn't that tired.”

Then he caught sight of the time shown on the bedside clock. Ten hours had elapsed.

“Okay, so maybe I was.”

There were still some of Shepard's old clothes in the armor cabinet, including an N7 hoodie and truly ludicrous he-man suit, the kind of thing Joker would give people as a welcome-home present.

 _Not this time_. However much he daydreamed Walter-Mitty style fantasies, Joker wouldn't be pinching anything with N7 insignia. Not to wear himself, anyway. He selected some Alliance fatigues a little too big for him, showered and dressed, and made his way down to the shuttle bay, where he expected to find EDI mucking around with the muck she'd pulled from Tiptree.

“No EDI.” _Where are you, girl?_

Try crew quarters. This area looked deserted, but he could hear faint movement from the _Normandy_ XO office. Some of Liara's old equipment was still mounted – things which would not have represented a security threat to the Shadow Broker.

“Aha! Found you.”

Here EDI had sorted the silver duffels containing remains. A few stacks of blackened shreds decorated the main workbench, no longer full of imaging screens.

“Good morning, Jeff.”

“Just barely morning. What _are_ you doing, EDI?”

She was bent over a microscope. Since her normal optics were fairly efficient zoom units, she must have wanted serious magnification.

“Sorting fragments as best I can, for burial, Jeff.”

For some reason this induced an overwhelming sense of – gratitude? Thankfulness? Joker could not find words. He approached, kissed the back of her neck. EDI sat straight, turned, and blinked at him.

“Jeff?”

“Thank you, EDI. These bones are all human?”

“No. Some are asari. I have been matching the sizes of bones against the list of those we think were sequestered by Neaira, to turn into husks. It is something I can do.”

“Who is Neaira?”

“Ask Shepard, Jeff. Perhaps I have said too much already.”

####  _Tooth and nail_

EDI returned her attention to something alien-looking under the microscope.

“What's that?”

“Remnant of a banshee fingernail. Someone fought.”

“O-kay. Anything of Gunny in there?”

“No, Jeff. From the washed-out images in the house, I have been able to reconstruct Hilary's Bertillonage parameters. They do not match the bones, or fragments of bones, that were present in the barn. However…”

“Don't keep me in suspense, EDI.”

“I am sad to say that one set matches your father. Transformed.”

“Oh.” Joker sat down. “Husk.” Pondered a moment. “I suppose this is a good thing.”

“Yes, Jeff. We should be able to give him a proper burial.”

“Parts of him.”

“Yes, Jeff. It is not ideal, I understand that. But it is what I could do.”

This merited another kiss.

He spent the rest of the morning sorting through the one silver duffel containing remnants of belongings in the house. EDI had put the contents of different rooms in separate black plastic garbage bags. Eventually he came to one for the bathroom.

“Huh. This belongs on your bench, EDI.”

She turned. Joker was holding up a little clear plastic ziplock bag.

“Is that a…”

“Tooth, EDI. Gunny's, surely. Collision with a tree branch, a month before the reapers, Dad never did get the story, I reckon she was embarrassed. _Such_ a tomboy.”

EDI got to her feet and took the bag from Joker's outstretched fingers. “I imagine she thought she was indestructible. Teenagers apparently do.”

She held it up to the light. Traces of blood on the roots, decayed and oxidized of course. Crown appeared broken, but pulp not exposed.

Joker sighed. “I didn't.”

“Jeff, I'm sor–”

“No, EDI, you're quite right. That's how kids think. Absent special circumstances. Like Jack, or me. Dying just isn't on the agenda for teenagers.”

What had Ashley said about Shepard? Any body part would do for a burial, something like that. He shrugged.

“Nothing new there. When do you think you will finish up?”

EDI turned back to the workbench. “Before the end of the watch, Jeff. Forty minutes from now.”

“I suppose we'd better get in touch with Tevos and let her know she can have the _Normandy_ back.”

“Not so quickly. I've notified such surviving relatives as I could find, but no-one seems to be interested in what we do with bones hundreds of years old. Except you.”

“Right. Okay. What do we do?”

“Cremation?”

“Some of them were Catholics, at least nominally. Frowned upon. Burial's better.”

“Well. Your immediate relatives spent most of their lives on Arcturus station, Jeff.”

“Till the Reapers wiped everyone out, yeah. That was my playground, too.”

“Prior to that, they came from various places in the old NAS midwest. I'd suggest Boise as the centroid. Perhaps if I contact the local diocesan authority–”

“Fine. Our own public Idaho. Tomorrow maybe?”

“The day after, perhaps. Do we need to rush?”

“Any reason I have to evacuate the _Normandy_ tonight? Do I have a week or so?”

“Yes. Tevos gave us two.”

“Won't make any difference to Dad. Nor Gunny's tooth. Wait, is there any chance we'll find the rest of her? Somewhere under the snow on Tiptree?”

“It is quite probable, Jeff. But that would require a further retreat of the snow line. Possibly another twenty-five years?”

“Roughly when I'd be woken, anyway. Keep the tooth for now. What happens next?”

“I sleep here, till Shepard summons us. Another few centuries, I suppose. You sleep… Jeff, where _do_ you sleep?”

“I can show you where I sleep. You're perhaps the only person left I can say that of.”

####  _D_ _ustman_

In fact, that night they slept in the XO office bed. It was closer to the workspace, but by then sorted remains went back into corresponding body bags and down to the shuttle bay door.

The following morning, they opened the bay door and dropped the bags down to a hovertrolley on the museum floor beneath, which EDI then guided to an aircar, then to the shuttle ready for transport to Earth.

The _Normandy_ was a lot of space for just two people. Joker found that office and the crew quarters made for a pleasantly domestic existence. It all helped, coping with the strangeness of the whole exercise. That afternoon, they delivered body bags to Boise.

Then they left Citadel space, for Joker's place of sleep. It would take a while.

####  _Voyage of the Dawn Treader_

Joker had not told Tevos he was going. Nor EDI. Not taking risks with security.

Their abrupt departure was noticed. The first long FTL step took them to a rock strayed from the Kuiper belt, well out of the plane of the ecliptic, on the way to Arcturus had they continued. On exit, EDI could see only space. It took a little work for long-range passive sensors to pick up a smallish asteroid some kilometres off.

“There's obviously been some drift.” Joker left the pilot's seat and began donning a light hardsuit.

“Jeff? What _are_ you doing?”

Joker grinned sideways and delved into one of the lockers beneath the back bench seats, retrieving some spiky-looking probes on a long handle, and a jetpack. Next he activated pumps which removed the cabin atmosphere to on-board tanks.

After some moments EDI enabled her skinsuit's mass effect containment field, and found a breather. Oxygen wasn't required for robot combat but without it, her skin – the 'organic integument' – would perish fairly quickly.

Both of them exited the side hatch. EDI watched, fascinated, as Jeff began running the probes over the hull exterior.

“Ah ha!” The probes lit up near the port rear thruster axis. “Look around there, would you? I can't see anything obvious.”

“In the infra-red spectrum, one of the bolts attaching the current certificate of registration is glowing. Perhaps two point five degrees above ambient.”

“Let's remove it and replace it with a cold bolt.”

Joker did not stop there. He continued till he had scanned the entire exterior. This done, he retreated to the cabin, rummaged around in the other seat locker, and pulled out something EDI recognized as a 'space kart' from a vacuum sports game; a helium-3 powered ion thruster with a seat and primitive controls attached. “You're not riding that!”

“Nope. The bolt will be. Close up.” They headed back directly towards Sol.

At around one AU from the sun, Joker cut the shuttle's own engines. Another EVA saw him rigging the space kart's primitive guidance system. “Oh boy. I've always wanted to say this. Having an audience just makes it sweeter.”

“Jeff?”

“Yee hah! Set the controls for the heart of the Sun!”

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?”

“The bolt's a sophisticated tracking device, EDI. The probe I used is a grown-up version of the thing Miranda used to track Kai Leng. Miri dropped it off when she left her ashes, with instructions to use it after doing business with the Citadel.”

Tevos' tracking device took one last ride, directly into the solar photosphere.

####  _Tread softly_

They crossed back over the Solar System, this second long FTL step taking an hour, reaching beyond the fuzzy far boundary of Earth's Oort cloud in a direction more or less _opposite_ Arcturus. Joker aligned the nose of the shuttle with the visible milky way.

“Tight-beam Radar, please EDI, one low-power ping.”

Another rock showed some hundreds of kilometres distant.

“More drift. Okay. Closing now.”

Ten minutes later the IFF transponder lit.

“We've been accepted. Transit protocol active, forty seconds from… _mark_.”

“A conduit relay? All the way out here? Stealthy.”

“Yep. Not deliberately stealthy. We are several hundred astronomical units out of range of anything that might detect it, and it's mounted on the far side of the rock from the Sun.”

“Jeff, don't keep me in suspense.”

“It was the first thing the old Crucible engineers did after the red flash. They had to get back to Earth from deep space. Hackett still had a QEC link with them, and told them how to build a chain of conduit relays like the one we were building to the Nest.”

“Oh. But Jeff, no one has ever heard what happened to the Crucible people. If they didn't come to Earth or the Citadel, where _did_ they go?”

Joker grinned.

“I see. I think. Very well, where are _we_ going?”

####  _Home from home_

This was a direct jump. There were no intervening relay hops. The shuttle exited the relay, some kilometres from a massive open parallepiped.

“Back to the Crucible factory, EDI. It's a bit grim, at first. Kind of away from it all.”

“The purpose is recognizable.”

“Just a dry dock, in principle, yes. Funny how they still call them that, a zillion kilometres from any ocean.”

“But it's an order of magnitude bigger.”

Also the dock was encrusted with support structures; cranes, sub-docks, and habitation turrets. One of them…

“That tower's lit.”

“I left the light on in the front porch, babe. Silly old groundling habit, I know.”

EDI gazed on a warm glow within windows.

“Not silly at all, Jeff.”

“So… you feel okay, then?”

“Why would I not? For some reason, I feel better seeing the light in the porch.”

“I was wondering if Tevos had dropped power to the Normandy's AI core. You know, just from spite. She's cute, but it's the kind of thing she'd do, I reckon.”

“Not likely, Jeff. Put yourself in her position. What's the profit in petulance?”

“It might hurt _you_ , and I'd feel it.”

“It's burning bridges. Could she deal with you or Shepard again, after such an act?”

“Ah. I see. I must learn to think like a politician.”

“No. You mustn't.” Joker blinked. “And do not worry, we know I would survive. My mobile's link to the core was cut when Shepard's clone shut it down, remember.”

Joker recalled that scene in the aircar with Shepard. “You blacked out a moment.”

“Not for long, and there were no lasting effects.” (EDI winked at him.) “I will survive. A week or so, at least. I'm sure I will find something I can do.”

“So will I, EDI. So will I.”

“Meanwhile, we must do something long-term with your bound-up and medi-gel'd foot. Is there a medical facility here?”

“Aaarrgh! Not what I had in mind!”

####  _Off his meds_

The foot took two days to come right. In that time Joker decided he could get used to having someone bring coffee on a whim.

The downside was EDI tidying up his deep-space bachelor pad. And he couldn't see her doing it, because his foot was in plaster.

There _were_ medical facilities here, albeit not the highest possible tech. They included fabs similar to the general-purpose units on the Normandy, which Mordin was able to call upon. Where necessary, EDI built something appropriate, including a mini-synthesis lab. He put up with the re-arrangements and clanging; it yielded some of the meds Chakwas once insisted he take.

“I hate pills.”

“Do you hate pain more?”

That once was Chakwas' argument too. The foot took four days to come right.

On the other hand, there were compensations. In that time Joker decided he could get used to having someone bring coffee on a whim.

####  _Existence and uniqueness_

By the second day, EDI had a lab fit for working on the Tiptree residues. Partial genomic sequencing could be completed for not less than twelve formerly human individuals whose remains had littered the ground beneath the barn timbers.

At this point EDI lacked access to the Citadel databases which would permit comparison with the genomes, where they were on file, of former denizens of Tiptree. That could wait.

From comparison with Joker's own genome, she _was_ able to establish that the material earlier identified did indeed come from Joker's father, partial sequence or not.

She did not advise Joker of this confirmation. It would merely make him sad again.

 _One last task_. That evening, before turning into bed, she finally managed to establish clean room conditions in her makeshift lab. The following morning, feeling much less tired and with Jeff's foot visibly improved, she set aside time for the tooth, stored in the freezer. For a few seconds she simply examined the zip-lock bag with his sister's tooth from all angles.

Decayed shreds of gum around the tooth's root were so badly oxidized that no firm conclusions could be drawn except from the mitochondrial DNA, which showed Jeff shared the same mother.

EDI embedded the tooth in an inert plastic, and began to section it. Quite soon she came to the pulp, and extracted a microgram for PCR analysis. Within twenty minutes, she had established a complete genome confirming beyond doubt that the tooth belonged to a sister of Joker, and began packing up.

She did not advise Joker of this confirmation. It would merely make him sad again.

At this point she realized that the pulp cells were so well preserved, that the nuclear material could be extracted.

* * *

Tuesday, June 7, 2016


	7. Days of wrath

####  _Proof of life_

On the fourth day, Moreau felt well enough to hobble around with sneakers on, and quite literally stumbled into EDI's lab. “Wow. White everywhere.”

“Jeff. I spent some effort creating a sterile environment here.”

“Oops. I just came in to say that the shuttle is prepped and we can take you back.”

“Never mind. The task is complete, and once back on the Citadel I can formally certify just which individuals were lost at that location.”

“The barn? Is that what you've been doing?”

“Among other things. I have finished. We can leave now, if you wish. But before we go, can we talk about vanished heroes?

“Aww, not this again? It's depressing.”

“You can't get in touch with them, can you. Is this a security issue? Am _I_ one?”

“Well, maybe. It's sort of, _'Don't call us, we'll call you'_. You weren't mentioned.”

“Is there any sort of message-passing facility? A dead drop, emergencies only?”

“More like, _drop dead_. There's a QEC link but I've only used it once, when I first got here. It was made very very clear to me by a very intimidating Lawson that it's a bugout line. I get to use it _once_ more. And if I'm justified, maybe I get to use it _once_ again.”

“You _do_ have a link. I have nothing. Or, wait–”

“I gotta make the right call _every_ time. One itty bitty error, _just one_ , I'm on my own.”

“Miranda, or Miri, she really said that? A bit severe.”

“No! Oriana! Some sort of Lawson legacy thing, I tell you, she's so sweet but have you any notion of how protective she became since Miranda died, where her family's concerned? If my QEC's cut off, there's only one other thing I can do.”

“Ah? Suicide? Live happily ever after with me? Pick one.”

“No! I mean yes, but I'm supposed to follow them down the rabbit hole!”

“It's curious no-one mentioned me. The chain doesn't stop at the Crucible factory?”

“First thing I checked. Traynor and Bryson said there's a system map in this place's war room. I had to spend half an hour powering up that part of the dry dock. It showed an active relay on the other side of this system _but that was hundreds of years ago_.”

“Not so bad. It must be working if they can come here. A day or so of relay transits.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Traynor said, take provisions for a month. _A month_. They're _way_ out, _deep_ space.”

####  _D_ _ecisions, decisions_

The next few days were straightforward, but directionless.

“Babe, out with it. What's bugging you?”

Joker had noticed that EDI, for the first time since he knew her, seemed at a loss. It wasn't that there was nothing to do; numerous small maintenance tasks abounded in the whole facility, EDI was uniquely qualified to do them. And in fact she _did_ do them, even exercising some of the space frame cranes that hauled heavy parts hither and yon over the docks, also replacing opto-electronic parts which had decayed over centuries.

“Several things. I have to return to the _Normandy_ tomorrow. But we destroyed Tevos' tracker. Won't she be upset?”

“Maybe. Will she take it out on you? I'm hoping not, she seemed devious but kind.”

“Surely not. The consequences, from her perspective, would be incalculable.”

“Some people don't calculate, EDI. _Most_ people. I've no idea either. We'll see.”

This was unanswerable. EDI did not, therefore, answer it, moving to the next issue:

“Then there is rampancy. But sleeping postpones that. Are you woken regularly?”

“Nah. Once every twenty years, on average, but the spread is huge.”

“Why did you wake this time?”

“I set my pod to do that after the last package delivery mission, fourteen years ago.”

EDI said nothing, simply looked reflective. Not for the first time, Joker wondered at how perfectly the Cerberus-designed gynoid mobile simulated human expression; surely hard-wired the same way as the human chain of facial reflexes.

“It had become clear the relay constructions would pass Tiptree around about now.” This time EDI nodded.

“It occurred to me something might happen and I wouldn't be able to come back.”

Now a sharp EDI look. “What would you have done if I hadn't agreed to come?”

Joker shrugged. “Still be nice to have seen you, one last time. Fewer regrets.”

“I see.” EDI contemplated her clasped hands a moment, then gazed at him again.

“Is that all that was bugging you, babe?”

“There is one more thing. Are you allowed to show me the QEC installation?”

Joker blinked. This was a slightly odd request for a disinterested robot to make, but:

“Don't see why not. It's actually quite close, three levels down. Any special reason?”

“You would be held to account for a trivial call to the team, that's been made clear?”

“Sure, someone would have to get up and answer the phone. Aggravating.”

“Let's hope it's not Oriana. Would _I_ be held to account?”

####  _A handful of dust_

The chamber, unpowered except for one glowing red LED telltale, had every visible surface coated in a fine layer of dust. EDI ran a finger along the control bench.

“Where did this come from? This is actual _grime_.”

“Hey, I didn't bring my vacuum cleaner. _(*Chuckle*)_ Cleaner that works in a vacuum, huh.”

EDI had been doing a lot of cleaning. “Is this evaporated regolith too?”

“Could be. Never used this thing anyway except the once. But early on, Vega did, and so did Miri, just before they took off down the rabbit hole. I wasn't allowed to hear their status reports, but…”

“If it worked for them, it should work for you. Understood.”

Cloths and water followed by trike – trichloroethylene – cleaned up the mechanisms. EDI gave Joker the water detail, while she examined the actual paper manuals.

“Electro-optical, using fabrication techniques which should withstand the millenia.”

“I'll take your word for it, EDI. Finished here. Power's up to the chamber now.”

“I'll do the trichloroethylene wipe.” EDI then engaged the scan power. Displays and the scan volume lit. Joker sighed in relief. “If you wish, Jeff, you could bring tea.”

Suitably de-stressed, they pondered their next move.

“Now we need my code.”

“Jeff, wait. Is this your Alliance officer-commanding code? Will it work?”

“Well, it should. But you have a point, Miri would have used something else.”

“Hackett may have provided one. I have one also. We should try that first.” EDI entered hers at the authorization prompt. No immediate change on the haptic display.

“QECs in my experience engage at once. What–”

“You're right, the delay is unusual. It's doing something now though, look.”

A blinking white circle replaced orange, unchanging for a short time; then solid.

“It has accepted the code, but no response.”

“Not yet. Maybe someone has to stumble out of their pod. Give it time, EDI.”

By this time, EDI was standing in the so-called scan volume of the QEC chamber, and Joker stood a little to one side; both paying careful attention to the 'write volume'. A QEC chamber of that era comprised two parts; one the 'scan volume,' scanned by induction fields directing laser scanning heads operating at infra-red frequencies.

The other, the 'write volume,' displayed images (laser-painted on particles suspended in a mass effect retention field) derived from signals originating from a read volume.

Joker held his breath as the status board's white circle changed to a green hexagon.

* * *

Wednesday, June 8, 2016


	8. The world is full of No

####  _No_

The write volume lit, and having lit, moved on, a wavefront of scintillating particles rising from the floor within a ghostly grid-marked cylinder defined by laser interference patterns. Joker noticed how EDI stood a little straighter at attention, hands behind back.

“Keep your cool, girl.”

“I am always cool. Or – so I tell myself. Except under battle stress, of course, in which case superheated coolant can actually be useful in combat.”

Barely visible lasers began scanning her in the read volume as Joker spluttered something about putting steamy jets from elegant ceramic fingernails out of his mind.

“That was a joke, Jeff. But I _am_ a hot Alliance death machine.”

“Uh huh.”

“Anyway, you would not see the steam till some centimetres from my finger.”

Joker groaned. Fortunately, the wait appeared to be over. An asari child's face poked into the far edge of the write volume. “Good morning. Who are you?”

The asari kid caught sight of her, squealed, and left. Joker and EDI glanced at each other, eyebrows raised. After some seconds, another asari face, this one vaguely familiar, cautiously poked through, slowly followed by the rest of the asari, who spoke:

“ _Er… hello?”_ Asari maiden. Not a child, but exceptionally gracile.

EDI was up to it. “As conversational gambits go, that leaves much to be desired.”

“ _Who in the nine hells are you?!”_ Definitely not a child. Even so…

“I asked first. Asari children on an Alliance QEC node? Please identify yourself.”

Joker hissed in the background, _(*EDI, I do believe that_ _'s_ _Vega's girlfriend.*)_

“ _My name is Treeya Nuwani._ Doctor _Treeya Nuwani. And you are?”_

“You may call me EDI. _Lieutenant_ EDI.”

“ _Edie who?”_ – asked the asari, following a perceptible delay.

Joker noted that fashions appeared to have changed; Nuwani was wearing a sharp Alliance style involving a tunic and short skirt over leggings, of the kind favored by Ashley once (except that Ash's had significant projectile-resistance qualities).

“If a surname is required, use Normandy. Where is the officer of the day?”

EDI, thought Joker, was quite correct; this was probably an Alliance-run operation – as it should be, if Shepard were in charge, a big _if_. Except he rather doubted the current crop of admirals knew any more of it than the bare fact of existence.

“Normandy _! Oh my.”_ She put hand to mouth in a gesture Joker found oddly familiar. _“I am a civilian employee. If you wish to speak to an Alliance officer, I'm afraid that's quite out of the question.”_

####  _No!_

“No officer on deck? In an Alliance facility?”

This was a disappointment, but in the back of her synthetic mind EDI was also wondering about the slight transmission delay between responses.

“ _I did not say that,”_ said the asari. _“But all the_ Alliance _officers, the humans at least, are in cold sleep.”_

QEC was supposed to be an essentially instantaneous method of communication. Such slight delays hinted at a limiting speed, a barrier in new physics beyond the light speed barrier. Meanwhile, the conversation continued:

“The only non-human Alliance officers are synthetic.”

“ _Well spotted, Lieutenant.”_

EDI began constructing a mental vocabulary for this new physics, calling it a pilot wave speed barrier. The ramifications for the standard model were dramatic; main significance for the present was that as Joker had said earlier, the far end of the QEC link must be in deep, deep space, far deeper than any other expedition EDI knew of.

And she knew of them all.

“Is there an Alliance synthetic officer available to speak with, then, or any _at all?_ ”

_(*_ _“_ _EDI!*)_ – hissed Joker; _(*There are pods in Normandy for at least Eva, Perseus, and Juno. The one for Juno is occupied!*)_ She turned to him, saying:

“Yes, Lieutenant. I know.” (The asari visibly noted the interruption.)

“ _Not immediately, I'm afraid, though I could wake one much faster than a human.”_ The QEC image of the asari turned right, nodded to someone out of her scan volume. _“And we shall. Lieutenant, I think I_ know _who you are. But please be brief.”_

“I suppose the synthetics are dodging rampancy. And the humans, old age.”

“ _Not that simple. This is a colony expedition with many children, not just human.”_

“One poked her head in earlier. They have never seen Earth, or any planet?”

“ _Children are awake much more often, for school, and life experience whenever we have an away mission not likely to involve combat. We always have the short-lived species awake together. Parents being short-lived, they take turns as mom or pop.”_

“Are there only asari awake?”

“ _Some krogan. A turian synthetic, no communication permitted._ _Meanwhile, d_ _o you wish to speak with the ranking non-human?”_

Yes, EDI definitely did.

  


####  _I told you before. No!_

The holo of Nuwani had gone from the QEC's write volume.

“Jeff, I suspect this time there will be a quite substantial delay before the officer of the day appears.”

“No shit. But didn't she say she'd wake a synthetic?”

“And then a human officer, I gather.”

It was, indeed, a significant delay. Jeff left for the kitchen, officially for coffee but in fact to exercise his stiff foot, and other members complaining of inactivity.

EDI was alone when a watch officer, _Krogan_ , appeared on QEC at the far end.

“ _Those are supposed to be Alliance duds? You're no Lieutenant. Identify yourself.”_

“I have already given my name to your asari 'civilian employee'. This is an Alliance-issue skinsuit. Do you wish to know my service record number?”

“ _Pah. Bureaucrat machine. No, I don't want your damned number, and the asari just said to be careful. I'm not taking security lessons from someone her size.”_

“Will you take one from me?”

“ _You do seem a bit familiar. But synths and humans are all alike to me.”_

“Lieutenant EDI, reporting. I require the Alliance officer of the day.”

“ _On a dedicated channel assigned to that idiot Joker, Moreau, whatever?_ Get lost. _”_

“That is not an option. But I can summon Lieutenant Moreau.”

####  _Hell, No!_

And in fact Joker turned up at that moment with two cups of steaming coffee, handing one to EDI.

“Thank you, Jeff. I may need to let off steam in a minute. Could you take over?”

“I hear you.” Joker stepped into the scan volume. “Hey, Grunt!”

“ _Joker, you asshole, what do you think you're doing? You know this isn't a party you're invited to.”_

“Actually, I don't know any such thing. This is my post, though. I'm to report if there's something that needs dealing with. Such as EDI here.”

“ _Is she life-threatening? No? Didn't think so. Does she endanger the mission?”_

“Well, I don't know. What do you think?”

“ _Doesn't matter what I think.”_

“You got that right. Bump this one up the ladder.”

“ _No-one needs to talk to you. You've got nothing useful to say._ Get lost _.”_

The QEC signal abruptly closed.

* * *

Thursday, June 9, 2016


	9. This service is disconnected

####  _Desperation_

Joker stared at the QEC interface, lifeless after Grunt cut the channel, eventually grinding out: “Well, that's it then.” Shrugged. “Ah well. We'll just have to make our own party.”

EDI was a little more pensive: “Not necessarily.”

“Say what? There's no hailing link.”

“But is the node pair broken?”

“It's gone.” Jeff peered at the console. “Yep. Zero entanglement pings there.”

“The asari, Dr Nuwani. She said she would be waking a synthetic, at least.”

_Oh yeah_. “You believed her? She would piss off Grunt, doing that.”

“She might have waited, but yes, I think she eventually would. Too late now, though. _Normandy_ is supposed to re-open soon. I need to return to the Citadel.”

“I know. We have a little time, but let's get you home, girl. Maybe I can talk sense into someone once they get back to me.”

“Is this a case of _'See you in quarter of a century,'_ do you think?”

“'Fraid so. We'll try again after I speak to the next person passing through.”

“Let's make the most of what time we have, then.”

####  _Many happy returns_

Joker's mood always tended to improve after getting behind the controls of a starship, even a shuttle.

“Do you think I could cram a month's supplies in here?”

“Jeff, I'm so sorry.”

“What? _I_ was the one who pissed off the Krogan in charge.”

“Even so, if it wasn't for me you would still have your one-shot QEC link.”

“Doubtful. I'd say something stupid sooner or later. Stupid conversations anyway. The one with Grunt, just stupider than most. Seriously, could a month be done?”

EDI looked around the volume, calculating.

“Easily. Except that I suspect you would need extra oxy, helium-3 and lithium salts.”

“Bugger.”

“But we could, I think, easily install exterior drop tanks for at least the ³He. And bring lots of distilled water, that's something explorers always seem to run out of.”

“Good. Coming down the rabbit hole?”

“My processes are still bound up with the _Normandy_ , Jeff. But if it kills me, I will.”

####  _Dawn chorus_

They skipped the Citadel, at first, and went directly to Earth, attending the scheduled funerals of the remains from Tiptree. It was depressing, a little, but:

“You really do make a wonderful Personal Assistance Mech.”

Joker had parked the shuttle behind the Boise River Diversion Dam under twenty metres of water, and hired an aircar taxi. The graveside service had finished. There was actual birdsong. That helped.

“Should I change my name? PAM? Pamela?”

EDI tucked her arm into Joker's. It gave useful support on the way back to the taxi, and that 'organic integument' was exothermic; close enough for him to feel warmth.

“I like EDI just fine.” They entered the airpark. “Whoa, what's this? Tevos?”

EDI sighed. “We should have expected this, after frustrating their tracker.”

“Yeah. You think she's mad at us?”

The councilor stood with a silent commando type – _bodyguard?_ – at the taxi door.

“Good morning, pilot Moreau. I would offer my condolences at your loss.”

“In a sense, ma'am, we gained a certainty,” said Joker. “Thank you.”

“You are most welcome.”

“I would offer my condolences at _your_ loss, but actually it was kinda fun.”

“Oh yes. That was actually a rather expensive model. But in the scheme of things, the cost is trivial, compared to the heartburn.”

“Heartburn? Councilor, I didn't know you cared.”

“Pilot Moreau, you can't begin to imagine how much hinges on your presence.”

“Why don't you tell me?”

“Your arrival seemed heaven-sent. Can't discuss why, not here. Perhaps Lieutenant EDI might be able to help.”

“What with?”

“Getting in touch with certain people.”

“Regrettably,” said EDI, “we tried that. Unauthorized and unscheduled contact is discouraged, and our principals were asleep. The door was rather definitively closed.”

“Oh _dear_. That's upsetting. Please tell me, what are your plans. Will you stay?”

“I prefer to go home. Except I've just been, and it's going to take me a lifetime to recover it. I'll repair instead to my lair, and go to sleep again.”

“Somewhere deep within dark space.”

“Ma'am, I'm not going to enlighten you, even by default, as to where in the cosmos my bolthole, which it isn't, might be.”

“Entirely proper. I am curious to know, however, how you avoid being traced.”

Joker grinned in his whiskers (EDI had threatened to shave them off. She settled for trimming, for now). He was still considering his answer when 'bodyguard' spoke:

“Councilor, Moreau here was by common consent the finest pilot in the Alliance Navy, and I would add, in _any_ navy. _I_ would think twice before attempting to follow.”

Tevos facepalmed. “I did in fact hear that from certain turian advisors. Thank you, Lemaes.”

Joker turned to the commando with a start: “Sorry Coreen.” ( _'Bodyguard'_ smiled.) “Didn't recognize you, all matronly.”

“That beard is a good disguise too, Jeff. How does EDI tolerate it?”

“She doesn't, but I can keep it till we leave.”

“EDI is going with you?”

“Just for a break. A week, maybe. She can't stay away from the _Normandy_ for decades, unless it's powered-up. So it's best if she comes back.”

Lemaes nodded. “Understood. Can we accompany you back to your shuttle?”

“We have a taxi. Coreen, if _you_ are here, where's _Pegasus?_ Or its descendant?”

“That would _so_ be telling. Joker, we have things to discuss. With the councilor.”

“Uh huh. And EDI, I bet.”

####  _D_ _oom impending_

Taxis were not a secure environment, said Lemaes. There was silence all the way back to the Presidium docks where Tevos' long-range shuttle awaited.

“Aren't we going to your office, ma'am?”

“If you would oblige us, I'd prefer we take this shuttle to our Tasmania enclave, Moreau. I'm assuming no-one can overhear us inside.”

“Not with Lemaes in charge. But from the Citadel at the outer Lagrange point, to Earth, will take some time even using the relay.”

“A little time, we do have. Possibly not much.”

Over the next few moments, Joker was occupied with clearance to depart from Traffic Control. This obtained, Lemaes threaded the shuttle through the exit lanes.

“Plan filed and destination locked for Hobart, ma'am. Engaging autopilot VI.”

“Finally. Are you aware, Moreau, that Urdnot Wrex fares poorly?”

“No? Uh oh. Crap!”

“He is finally coming to the end of an exceptionally long life. And yes, _uh oh_. Crap, not yet. But other clans and several kin are making noises about the succession.”

“With one of themselves as clan leader, right?”

“Right. And some are winning support for renewing Krogan expansion.”

“They've already expanded! They have what, thirty colonies now?”

“Expansion by the old methods, Moreau. Unrestricted population growth–”

“Bloody hellfire!”

“That indeed is the turian spectres' plan. They finally have a chance to play with all their Shepardian toys, after centuries. The Salarian STG has different options. Both groups have the support of their respective councilors–”

“There's only one spectre I'd trust to work the angles on something like this.”

Lemaes' eyes glittered. Tevos, not quite so transparent, said: “My thinking also.”

“So send him a message…” – but Lemaes interrupted:

“Moreau, when the Council agreed to his preposterous colonization plan so long ago, it was so that a certain person _and everyone on his team_ was out of our tentacles!”

“Right. Incorruptible heroes can be _such_ a drag on politics as usual. Like we didn't see _that_ coming. So what?”

“So we can't send a message.”

“Speak to the Alliance then. Or… let me guess…”

“Hackett's dead, centuries ago. Hannah Shepard's not been seen since transition to reserves, not long after. Shepard very pointedly issued no QEC node to the Council.”

* * *

Thursday, June 9, 2016


	10. Camouflage

####  _Ah! what terror shall be shaping_

“The whole project worked through a series of cut-outs. In fact it wasn't even a council project except for personnel, the Alliance paid the bills and the Alliance held the QEC codes. Security was _tight_ like you wouldn't believe.”

“Coreen, _somewhere_ there will be a QEC node or three purring away in a semiconductor Mössbauer matrix.”

“We think the current Admiral of the Fleet has one.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Joker perceived EDI had taken Tevos' shirt sleeve and was gently pulling her from the back of the shuttle. He exclaimed:

“Good!”

“She's Chinese. Her deputy is Russian. STG is trying to organize replacements–”

“Oh boy.”

“– but for all they care, whatever the Turians and Salarians cook up for the Krogan, it can't be too much. And no-one else wants to place the call. We hear certain people high up in the Alliance are petrified of what certain revenants might do to their schemes. The NAS and the Australians are worried but out of the loop, and the Europeans think the time to call Shepard is when the excrement hits the ventilator.”

“Mikhailovich wouldn't have been so blind.”

“Both the Mikhailovich brothers have been dead for centuries.”

“Crap.”

“As you say. I would use a stronger word.”

“So what am _I_ supposed to do about this?”

“Call them! Please?” Tevos' plea came from behind them.

Joker sighed a sigh. “Ma'am, I _can't_. Not won't, _can't_. That door's closed. They're not even awake. I think the point is, we're supposed to sort this out for ourselves.”

The councilor appeared to be suffering from shock. She rallied, stood, and turned to look out a shuttle window a moment. Then she turned back: “Well. I must make plans for the worst. Continuity of civilization… ours, or the krogan, or both.”

“Ma'am–”

“There is much to do, Lieutenant.”

“Ma'am, _listen_ to me. There may be another option.”

“I'm listening.”

“It will involve bringing the _Normandy_ out of museum dock.”

“Out of the question!”

“Wouldn't hurt to have _Pegasus_ around, either.” Joker could hear a sharp in-drawn breath from Lemaes, at that point.

“The absence would be noticed!”

“ _GOOD!_ ”

There was a stunned silence. Tevos recovered fast:

“You want us to _announce_ the _Normandy's_ return to active service?”

“Don't have to. It never left. Still a fully commissioned ship of war. Just arrange for provisions, munitions, and fuel. Make sure the munitions are on the news.”

Lemaes cleared her throat: “Moreau is quite correct, Councilor.” Then, turning to Joker and EDI: “But the councilor is right to be concerned. Closure of the museum exhibit will make waves. What kind of cover story do we prepare?”

“You don't prepare _any_ cover story. Asari don't really believe in the utility of war, do you? Violence, perhaps. Targeted, for sure. But with you it's always jaw-jaw, not war-war, am I right?”

“Jaw-jaw? You mean negotiation? Well yes. Your point?”

“You really don't have the mental reflexes for this, so bear with me.”

“Lieutenant, exactly what am I supposed to say when the news media ask me point blank where the _Normandy_ has gone!?”

“You say nothing. You studiously examine the fingernails of your left hand.”

Shock at first in two asari faces. Joker was fascinated to see Lemaes recovered first:

“Fine, Moreau. We let them speculate that Tuchanka's the destination. Presumably that would make certain Krogan think twice?”

“Exactly. But it would only buy time.”

“Time is what we are short of. What do we say when they ask who's commanding?”

“You remind them _Normandy_ is the runabout of council Spectres, and such individuals do a lot of free-running.”

“So when they ask _which_ Spectre?”

“You studiously examine the fingernails of your _right_ hand.”

“Oho.” Lemaes pondered this, turned to Tevos: “Could work, short term.”

“And I wouldn't actually have to lie. What about longer term?”

“That's what worries me. No-one's really going to believe in Shepard's return, it's something straight out of myth. Any more bright ideas, Moreau?”

Joker grinned. A toothy grin from a beard is a fearsome thing for asari to behold.

“It's not _Shepard's_ return we make them worry about.”

 

####  _When the Judge the truth's undraping_

On arrival in Hobart, plans were set in motion for provisioning _Normandy_.

“Won't you need a crew?” –asked Lemaes. “I could set you up with the Alliance.”

“Not this time, Coreen. Crew would know Shepard's not aboard. You have me and EDI. That's enough for now. If we need extra crew, we'll let you know. _However_ …”

“Moreau?”

“Make sure some media person gets a look at me and EDI boarding the boat.”

“Oho. You will have to lose the face fungus. I can get you to the Citadel though.”

“No pictures. It should be deniable. But the media commentator should be unimpeachable. Too bad Jilani or Allers aren't still around.”

“They'd be centuries dead, Joker, as you know perfectly well. But I'll find someone.”

Tevos threw a snit when Joker had said that _Normandy_ would not be returning to the museum, at least for the foreseeable future, and she should announce a cover story.

“You can't have her back, ma'am. People, especially krogan, have to think that the Once and Future Commander is out there, patrolling, for as long as possible.”

“Yes, I do follow that, Lieutenant. But the loss to the archives–”

“Councilor, _it's an Alliance ship_. At least until we get a paint job or you change the registry. It doesn't belong to you, or the Council, or the Archives.”

“So what happens when the current Admiral of the Fleet demands that it return?”

“That's it, you see. She won't be able to do that, _because I won't be in contact_. _”_

“Oh. Not actually disobeying orders then. You're taking the boat to dark space?”

“No comment. I'll add that if Fleet Admiral Chang did get in touch, I'd say in my ghostliest voice that she's not in my line of command.”

“Word of advice, Lieutenant. Get EDI to do that. No-one can take your voice seriously for that kind of Doom.”

“Fine, burst my bubble why don't you.”

“What happens if she insists? You won't ever be able to bring the _Normandy_ back.”

“ _Big_ mistake. That ever happens, ma'am, I really _will_ take her to Shepard's team, if it takes another half-millenium. They won't like being barred from Alliance space.”

“I'll find a way to send that message. What could the team possibly do, though?”

“Dunno. Everything the team ever achieved looked impossible till they did it. I'll get someone to say, _You're Admiral of the Fleet? W_ _here is Hackett?_ In an angry Shep voice. That's really serious doom, too. In the last analysis, it's not what he will do…”

“But what he _might_ do, in the imagination of the guilty?”

“You got it.”

####  _Even the just must take their chances._

Media were to be on hand covering _Normandy's_ extraction from the archives for her next “upgrades”. The operation was scheduled for the following month. Some upgrading would in fact take place. _That_ meant everyone had to scramble. Tevos had Lemaes ferry Joker and EDI to the Citadel Archives. EDI re-entered her pod for the next few weeks; Joker occupied one of those in the cargo bay.

Twenty-five days later, they were woken. Coreen Lemaes and Tevos asked if they could board the _Normandy_ for her shakedown cruise. _Good idea_ , said Joker. _Maybe let media people see me and EDI through the bridge windows_. _Keep it deniable_.

As it turned out they weren't able to ban cameras completely. A grainy high-zoom shot of the mythical AI and her pilot, taken at half a kilometre's distance, went viral. Few believed it was anything other than a clever fake, but the paparazzo running the spy-eye was personally convinced, till remanded to C-Sec cells for air safety offences.

_Normandy_ entered stealth without passing through the local relay system. This detail too was picked at by conspiracy theorists. EDI then piloted the frigate stealthily by night to the Boise Diversion dam. The organics left the hatch, and faced the lake.

“You've said your goodbyes. What are we here for, Moreau?”

“Don't you want a lift back to the Citadel, Lemaes?”

“We were going to use commercial transport. People would wonder how we did it.”

“But that's a _good_ thing. More for grist for the conspiracy theorists' mill.”

“Oh yeah. Fine. But we can't go back in the _Normandy_ , obviously. We just left!”

“Oh, ye of little faith.” Joker grinned, minus beard, and worked his omni-tool. Twenty seconds later, his long-range shuttle emerged from the lake.

“Ta-daaa! Now let's go shopping, I want to stock up on steak and bagels here.”

“You realize Moreau, this means EDI will be piloting the _Normandy_ alone?”

“Do I look worried?” So Lemaes and Tevos were dropped off at the Presidium docks by a relatively anonymous shuttle. Joker still found time to shop some more.

####  _Cats from every bag, escaping_

Five hours later: “ _Goddess_.”

“Councilor?”

“All the _Normandy_ trackers say they have just collided with Luna City.”

“Is Luna City still there?!”

“Yes. Mystified by all the fuss. That man Moreau is impossible to live with!”

Coreen Lemaes laughed out loud.

“What's so funny?”

“To start with, EDI doesn't seem to have difficulty living with him.”

* * *

Thursday, June 9, 2016


	11. Party time

####  _Elsewhere I'll attend_

Before they left Joker discussed the threat with Lemaes. Interjections by Tevos brought many surprises. Then, no pulling no less than _four_ trackers off _Normandy_. _Good to have EDI_ _around_. She had been far quicker with manipulating the detector.

Running a _Normandy_ class frigate through a relay really required someone at the engineering console, to be safe. Joker elected not to fly, parking the long range shuttle in the Shuttle bay. This meant ditching the old Kodiak shuttle, or the Hammerhead.

“Why are we keeping the Hammerhead, exactly?”

Actually it was for reasons he found hard to explain to EDI, involving not bringing a shuttle to a tank fight, but Joker instead cast it in terms of redundancy;

“Hey, we do still have a shuttle. I can only pilot one at once.”

EDI sniffed at that. She could pilot a shuttle, too. Still, the Kodiak was left at the Oort cloud rock they'd passed through last time, first stop on the way back, where Joker discharged _Normandy's_ core.

Returning to the crucible project site took a day and a half. At EDI's insistence, before every minor navigational maneuver Joker had to verify adjustments on the engineering console as well as charge on the eezo core; tune the helium-3 thruster feeds; check that nothing had come loose around the ship; then return to the pilot's seat for the actual course change.

When they did finally get back, they went straight to sleep.

####  _Mitigating circumstances_

Normally EDI did not need full sleep; the dual toroid design of her cortical coprocessors allowed for just half of her synthetic brain to be 'asleep' at a time.

This night, however, both halves slept. The accumulated events of the last few days, and the lack of obvious threat, indicated that for once, she could. Nonetheless, EDI rose first. There had been dreams. Good dreams, if profoundly disturbing. Synthetics do dream; most such dreams go unremembered. Not these.

Joker, though, slowly woke to the sound of EDI tinkering. He got up.

“Jeff? The crucible project defences appear not to have been stripped.”

“No kidding? I can see the _Normandy_ from our window, at the habitat dock.”

“I mean, there are munitions still here from the Reaper war.” EDI stood motionless for a moment. “ _Normandy_ is rather larger than the shuttle. We could move the shuttle from the hold, and store the _Normandy_ within a sub-dock three hundred metres away.”

“No, no. At least for now. I like it that she's there.” Joker turned. “Also you.”

Now EDI smiled. “It is pleasant to be here, with you. Not having to leave.”

“Yah. You have options now.”

####  _Spare me, Lord, make them thy fuel_

They spent two days painting over the _Normandy_ 's Alliance livery. The third day started with a companionable breakfast, not that EDI ate anything, but she did drink her coffee (it topped-up coolant, after all). Citadel news could be picked up from the QEC node whose pair they had left behind.

“Fifth Star news is making a real meal of the _Normandy_ 's departure.”

“So they should, Jeff. But, _Normandy_ has no mission. Quite without foundation.”

“Lots of ' _boy, those krogan are really going to get pasted now_ ,' sort of thing.”

“I noticed. Such jingoism is a worry.”

“Why, because you can't slay every krogan on Tuchanka?”

“No, Jeff. Because I can.”

Later that 'day', around sixteen hundred Zulu, Joker (with EDI) finished the list of priority maintenance tasks having accrued since the last awakening.

“We still have to exercise the breeder reactor in main engineering. Should have started that the moment I woke up. We'll twiddle our thumbs till cycle's complete.”

“That will take a week, Jeff. Also, it involves a breeder restart from scram. It has been a comparatively short time between revivals from the pod, so–”

“You're right, it can wait. Do it next time. Anything else?”

“That's all. I suppose we should head for cold sleep, now?”

Joker heaved a sigh. “It's been nice while it lasted.”

####  _Now the trumpet's invocation_

But the universe has a perverse sense of timing. A klaxon sounded.  
“There's a ship in-system!”

“Should we head to the war room?”

“No! It's been powered down for half a millenium anyway. Head for _Normandy_ , I'll shut down the habitat tower and scram the reactor.”

“Stealth mode?”

“Yeah. We'll start by trying to play possum, don't have the crew for boarding.”

Re-powering the stealth frigate did not take long. Arranging for stealth took a little longer. They did not undock; it seemed better to appear unpowered and static. Joker, tempted to go as far as closing the shutters, instead settled for red-light illumination.

“Can you see anything yet? I can't.”

“Not a flicker, Jeff. But I have only engaged passive sensors. It might be another stealth ship. If I power-up the Argus array–”

“Don't do that. We wait. If it's C-Sec, we run like hell and blow the rabbit-hole.”

####  _All receive an invitation_

Straining to pick out a change in their surroundings, Joker could hear his heart pounding in his chest. There were no auditory simulators running; silence otherwise was total. EDI saw it first:

“There, Jeff. A moving speck.”

Her mobile pointed: it had been the mobile's optics, not the powered-down shipboard sensors, detecting a faint flicker in the stellar field.

“I see it, babe. That's peculiar.”

“Just an unremarkable point source at the moment.”

“It's coming from the general direction of the rabbit-hole, EDI. The relay back to Sol system is behind us.”

This meant it could be pirates. Pirates, they could deal with. Or wait…  
“It's been a bit less than a month since the QEC link died.”

“I was thinking the same thing, Jeff. Could it be… Yes, it could.”

Joker could still only see a moving point of light. “EDI?”

“At extreme zoom, my optics are picking that the ship's length is the same as the _Normandy_ , but no other details at present.”

####  _Makes it awkward for the erring_

“Are we there yet?”

“Fun-ny. You've made us all wake up, Grunt. Don't try us.”

“Doesn't look like much, Cortez. We came so far for this?”

Others of the old guard there assembled nodded. The pilot simply kept guiding _Overlord_ toward the still-tiny box-like structure hanging in free space.

“Just wait, Grunt. It's only a dry dock, but huge. You ain't seen nothin' yet.”  
More minutes crawled by; Cortez began to hear a muted chorus, breaths in-drawn.

“There's a ship docked to one of the habitation towers,” observed Miri.

“Yes,” confirmed Minerva. “and this will interest you; _Normandy_ -class.”

There was general astonishment. Treeya scrunched up against Vega. He extended an arm across her shoulders, exclaiming:

“What the _hell_? I thought all of them were accounted for?”

“They're all museum ships,” said Cortez, looking back from the pilot's seat.

“Right.” Ashley nodded. “They do get taken out for a run from time to time.”

“No-one wanted to watch the hulls die of metal fatigue,” Miranda remarked.

“Yah,” said Cortez, who kept track. “It's reported each one has been regularly maintained, and even upgraded, if not quite to the same extent as _Overlord_.”

“Should I ping?”

Minerva, in the co-pilot seat, extended a hand over the Argus haptic display, although as the ship AI she could have engaged it without twitching a finger on her mobile. “There is no obvious power signature.”

“There wouldn't be.”

“But Miri, at extreme magnification it shows Cerberus livery.”

“ _Shit!_ ” Vega had very negative memories of Cerberus. Miranda's, more ambiguous: “Peculiar. All the more reason to maintain scanner silence.”

“Are we sure this is still the same place where Joker sleeps?”

“I last saw it several hundred years ago. But yes. Get closer to _Normandy_.”

“I have a _good_ bad feeling about this,” muttered Miranda.

“He _wouldn't_. He could never organize it!”

“He _would_ , and he _could_ , and he _did_. You know he's done it before, Ash!”

“Dammit. See what you started, Grunt?”

“Don't you guys gang up on me, I've already been reamed by Shepard, Jack, and Oriana all at the same time!”

“And Nuwani waved a finger in your face.”

“Yeah, that was _scary_. Can't you keep your girlfriend under control?”

“Nope. Wait – Ash, you think Joker's preparing a run down the rabbit-hole?”

“I did, until the Cerberus livery showed up. Now I don't know what he's doing.”

“I do,” – a sleepy voice behind them. “I think he must want to bluff someone.”

Everyone turned. “Kelly, you're not supposed to be awake.”

“Traynor seems to think I'm needed, Ash.” Poor Traynor flinched at the glare. “Aren't you're all forgetting something? Treeya and Grunt spoke to EDI, right?”

“Right. _Oh_. Where EDI goes–”

“The _Normandy_ follows. I expect the Cerberus livery is some sort of plan B.”

“See what you started, Grunt?” (Vega)

“Shaddap!”

“Joker trying to be a hero. Are we too late to avert catastrophe?” (Ash.)

Cortez shook his head. “Who knows? We don't get Citadel News out here.”

“Joker _and EDI_ being heroes. Oh boy. I can see it.”

“It's worked before. When it counted. Cortez, there's another dock opposite.”

 

####  _So says Virtue, so says Beauty._

“You're sure about this? I'm jumping up and down. Which hurts. Why am I jumping up and down? I'm scared.”

“You will be able to discern their faces yourself, soon. Cortez is piloting.”

“Okay. I'm heading out to extend dock two. Can't trust a second-rater to do it right.”

“Cortez is not a second-rater. But I will come with you, Jeff.”

“We need you here! Oh wait. Right.”

EDI left her focus in the AI core just in case, but that didn't stop her mobile accompanying Joker to dock two.

While _Overlord's_ officers filed into the habitat, Joker grew steadily more concerned. There were no children on this visit, which was very unusual. These Combat triad squadmates were on edge. There were _so many of them_. Never during his year (total) of wakefulness did more than one adult turn up at a time.

The first made Joker rub his eyes: she looked like Juno, but it turned out to be a different AI, Minerva, with the same chassis. She and EDI exchanged three words: “Fifteen gigahertz, hopping.”

Then they moved off together in silence, guiding the rest of the crew to the habitat volume. Immediately following came a couple of extraordinarily young engineers Joker did not recognize, Samantha Traynor (who offered a big grin), Nuwani, and…

“Grunt! Get lost!”

“I'm already lost, funny man.”

Cortez, then Vega, quickly filed past, Vega running. Next in line was the godawful young Lawson smiling an anticipatory Miranda smile, which was not reassuring, but better than certain other Miranda expressions. They seemed to be filing past in reverse order of seniority – which had implications. Sure enough, Ashley brought up the rear.

It was the penultimate voyager which really shocked him. Not until Kelly appeared did Joker realized _he_ was not in trouble. They'd worked together since before Shepard on the SR-2.

“ _Well_. I wondered how long it would take you two to come to your senses.”

He'd had a kiss and a hug. EDI too.

* * *

Saturday, June 11, 2016


	12. Nothing personal

####  _When offenders are indited_

“Hey. I was supposed to stay at my post. EDI had to stay in the museum.”

“Yeah, _sure_ you were,” said Vega. “Cortez had a pool going on how long _that_ would last. Which reminds me–”

“James, I'm right here. We're both right here.”

“That's the point, EDI.” (To Steven Cortez:) “Mission's not over. Pay up!”

“Give me a break Vega, we've only Citadel credits right now. _Waitaminute_. They'd still be in separate bedrooms if Grunt hadn't punched out the QEC!”

“Guys–” But Vega and most others were already moving off to the kitchen:  
“Come off it, Cortez, _I_ didn't make Grunt do that!”

“Cheat, you swine! Prove it! Joker, any beer here?”

“Yeah, fine, Cortez can buy me a beer when we hit town. Can you trivialize our personal lives later? Ideally, when we're not so busy?”

“Being on mission never stopped _you_ , Joker.”

“That's _beside the point_!”

“No, it isn't.”

“AHEM.” There was a lull, Ashley glaring at Cortez (already abashed), and Vega (shambling to something resembling attention). _Impressive_ , thought Joker, pondering Ash's command presence. He noticed she had five shoulder bars.

Admiral Ash looked up to another target: “Grunt, front and center!”

“Oh, crap.” The huge krogan, mumbling, shuffled forward.

“Don't you have something to say to your crewmate here? _Both_ of them?”

“I'm sorry I smashed your phone,” muttered Grunt.

“And?”

“And… I won't do it again.”

“Very well. You're on the clock, Traynor. Grab a spare node, fix the phone.”

“Eek. Aye, aye ma'am. Hey, can Cortez volunteer? There's a beer in it, Steve.”

“It's allowable,” allowed Ash.

“ _Fine_. I'll grab a node pair, you yank the dead node…”

Voices faded into the middle distance. Ash sighed, and sat by the window.

“Admiral Williams. Thank you.” Joker bowed. “Noisy and nosy still, aren't they?”

“Joker, you know better than that.” She was looking severe, but didn't mean it.

####  _And the late lamented, waking_

Miri/Miranda had meanwhile been looking out the window at the _Normandy_.

“John will have a fit.”

“Sure about that, ma'am?”

“I'm not your superior officer now, Joker.”

“No, m– I mean, don't bet on it. Shepard might even approve. Lots of good things Cerberus came his way, Miranda, the SR-2, then there was EDI, and Kelly–”

Joker hesitated, recalling Kelly was standing not far behind them, listening carefully. He turned and grinned. She blushed. How did she do it? Barely older than the quasi-child of the Cerberus years, still gorgeous. So was this Miri. And – way too young.

“Maybe you also. Miranda's ashes are strewn as you asked. Who _are_ you, ma'am?”

“It is as it seems, Joker.”

“EDI says it's impossible. Something about the second law.”

This impossible Miranda began picking her words very carefully: “It has to be impossible, and that is why I cannot answer to 'Miranda' any more.”

“All right… Miri, or whoever you are… you will have to explain that to me.”

“Speaking hypothetically, Joker…”

“I've never been good at that.”

“Then I will do it for you. Suppose it were possible to reverse the aging process. Which, by the way, it is not.”

Joker blinked. Standing before him was the living disproof, but: “OK. I'll play.”

“What happens next, Joker? Remember, people are still having children.”

“Lots of people live longer. They go back and have more kids. OK, that's bad, we fill up the Universe.”

“In an astonishingly short space of time, if you do the math. But _before_ that, what happens next?”

“Er… every man alive tries to kill off his fellow man, except his own family?”

“Even before _that_.”

Joker thought it through. “Oh shit.”

“Be more precise, Joker. What _kind_ of shit-storm?”

“War between the the humans and every competing alien species?”

“Well done. Isn't it wonderful that perpetual youth is not, in fact, possible?”

“Yah. Why are Ashley, EDI, and Kelly hanging on our every word?”

####  _Death and Nature now are quaking_

“Rear-admiral Williams, is here to enforce the need-to-know rules. Captain-Doctor Chambers because _she already knows it all_.”

“Um. _Oh!_ ” Joker snuck a look at Kelly, who fractionally dipped her eyes and chin.

“EDI, because in the judgment of the man who sent us here, now Admiral himself, she needs to know. _You_ are here not because you need to know, but because EDI does.”

“Well, thank you so much. If it's that dangerous, perhaps the expertise should never have been developed!” Joker could hear EDI saying _Jeff_ , _stop_ , in the background.

“Are you suggesting we should shoot the scientists responsible?” – asked Ashley.

“Hey, I guess that's an option!”

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than Joker knew he'd made a mistake. Quicker than his eye could follow, and his eye was exceptionally fast, Miri slapped the black low-slung holster on her thigh and pulled a deadly little black pistol.

Joker just had time to register that it was the same model Shepard had brought back from the Clone incident, and to begin pondering an afterlife, when “Miri” tossed it up, and picked it out of the air reversed – she held the barrel and extended the grip at him:

“Take it.” Feeling a little numb, he obeyed. Miri piled on the pressure:

“Maybe you're right. Miranda was of those who developed the underlying science, with Chloe and Jana. I'm the first beneficiary. You want to shoot me? Bravo. _Do it_.”

It sounded like an order. Automatically, Joker pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

“Don't forget the safety catch, Moreau. And remember, the critical neuroscience breakthroughs were made by the woman standing behind you.”

Joker turned. Kelly was biting her lip. “Oh, _fuck_.” His muscles went slack and his pistol hand dropped to his thigh. Miri advanced three paces, picked it out of his fingers, her gaze never leaving his eyes.

“She would have taken the bullet, just like me, you know. As would Chloe. Jana, too, albeit with significant angst.”

“My life wouldn't be worth a red credit chit afterwards.”

“Lieutenant-Commander Moreau, hear me. Your life would be safe.”

There were two pieces of information in those two sentences, and neither made a damned bit of sense. Joker's confusion must have shown on his face:

“He understands that sometimes those you love have to leave you.”

“Bait, or hostages to fortune,” added Ash. The N7 on her chest leapt into vision.

“Oh.” _Well_ _there'_ _s_ _another_ _item_ _not really_ _cleared up_. “What about the promotion?”

Ashley again: “There was a fork in the road, Moreau. You picked the right path.”

####  _In their breezy shrouds are shaking_

“You mean, it was okay if I shoot some of Shepard's girlfriends?”

“Exactly. We're not where we're supposed to be,” said Miri. “There is a protocol.”

“Hell of a way to tell me what it is!”

“Dramatic as I could make it. Will you remember it now, do you think?”

Joker knew this scene would be appearing in nightmares for the rest of this life.

“Look, Joker: what happens if there is even so much as a _rumor_ of someone dead who is not merely alive, but younger?”

“You are going to get every rascal in the cosmos chasing it up.”

“Every politician. Every billionaire. Every General. Well, maybe not _all_ of them.”

“Every _admiral_ , Miri.”

“No. There was one Admiral of the Fleet who signed off on the protocol, knowing full well he might benefit from Lazarus procedures. Basically it's a ban, except–”

“Hackett approved this?”

“Then he died. Protocol says, scientists and beneficiaries must leave known space.”

“Which he wouldn't do. Hannah Shepard _let_ him do this?!”

“She was there,” said Kelly. “She did. I still have bad dreams about it.”

“Thing is, Joker,” began Miri, “my brain wasn't that old.”

“Spark still suitable for a new clay, huh? Which I suppose was _not_ true of Hackett.”

Kelly nodded. “Even with anti-methylation and so forth, which Hackett did not have, there comes a time when all that would be left in a bright young body, is a husk of the person you once were. Knowing that, Jeff, would _you_ want to go on?”

Joker pinched the bridge of his nose.“No. Especially not without EDI,” who nudged him, smiling. “Fine. I could really go a beer right now. Whisky, even better.”

“I'd second the medicinal whiskey,” said Ash. “If we have any. We can do the beer, I think, unless Vega got at the supplies from his pod. Coffee would be quicker.”

“I'll organize it,” said Kelly and ran. _Didn't really want more of this_ , thought Joker.

If he had followed, he would have seen she was crying.

* * *

Monday, June 13, 2016


	13. Without form, and void

####  _This is the end_

_Cheyne-Stokes_. That's what they called it. For ten minutes he had been vaguely aware his breathing had become noisy.

There was a bedside reading light tilted away from his face; it began casting deeper shadows. _S_ _ight dimming now_ _,_ _too_. Monitoring instruments blinked and beeped faster, less clearly – or seemed to. Not thinking straight. _Funny things happening_ _with_ _time_.

On the other hand: (*“ _I can still hear_ _…_ ”*)  
– whereupon the two silhouettes crouching over his bed exchanged looks. One said:  
“ _I'm still here?_ Did you catch that?” (He knew this shape. _Who?_ Couldn't remember.)

“No. I don't think that was it.” This other dim shape leaned closer, green eyes shadowed in a bright glory from the reading spot. “It'll all be over soon.”

“Please… can't we prepare him for Lazarus Two?”

_It's too late, never had the anti-methylation_ _implants_ _, brain_ _decayed_ _for_ _decades,_ _clone_ _too_ _old_ _now_ _besides_ _._ Struggling desperately to shout _NO_ , all that came out was a thin gurgle. Green-eyes though spoke for him, with different reasons, still good:

“Admiral, no. Even if he consented, it's improper. You know it, I know it, Miranda and Chloe knew it, you both countersigned the protocol and you _know_ he forbade it!”

Something really was wrong with vision, her forehead and eyes glowed like a soft-focus sim, but he couldn't raise a hand to rub his eyes any more. The other silhouette raised one for him, holding it against her chest, spoke bitterly: “Some doctor you are. What's the oath to help the sick?” So disdained, glory retreated to shadow again. He tried to shake his head. Couldn't do that any more either. Shadow though spoke softly,

“The oath begins, _Fi_ _rst do no harm_. Lazarus would be harmful now – to him, first. Others later.” But second shadow gripped his hand tight. She was about to argue. With a terminal effort he worked his jaw and managed:

“ _Listen. To the. Doctor. Woman. I loved. You all. One day. You must tell. Them.”_

_Breath_ _e_ _, man_ – there was still more he should say. “ _Closer. Into the light, I can't see you.”_ It was getting harder to see the shadow outlines. _“_ _Bring them,”_ he managed. Three more last gurgling words: _“_ _And more_ _light.”_ He realized his breathing had stopped again. Didn't restart. Then his head fell back, and he couldn't move. As from a far distance, he could still hear glory's shadow say:

_(“Calling it. Twenty-one oh three Zulu, two two fife seven oh four oh one.”)  
_ Shadow two broke down, clasped his hand between chin and chest; recovered, rasping:

_(“Bring in family? At least the kids, such as we have of them?”)_

_(“Yours first. Then mine.”)_

Light came, and glory.

* * *

Monday, June 13, 2016


	14. Assured Destruction

####  _ Death-blow. Pardon such behavior _

Ashley was still looking out the habitat window at _Normandy_ in Cerberus livery.

“Pretty good paint job, Joker.”

“Even the hands cupping the world,” agreed Miri.

“EDI did most of it. From memory. I reckon Shep might even have a quiet smile. After scolding me. Besides, it's not anodizing. We can clean it off when we're done.”

Ash looked back from the window. “So this isn't intended to last?”

“No. It might have been, it's irritating how people forgot who actually made her.”

EDI was right beside Joker at this point, and took his hand.

“But the fact is, that's only a paint job, and not even anti-flash paint. It won't last six months with the ultraviolet it'll get.”

“Okay,” said Ashley. “That's acceptable. Are we done?”

“No. You know, Miri,” Joker said slowly, “there's a way around marooning for _you_.”

“Moreau, remember the problem with Lazarus treatments? What's the protocol?”

“It maroons people who get it, so they're outside society. People would want to come after you, is that the problem?”

“Yes. In a nutshell.”

“So scare the living bejeezus out of every human alive, Miri. You're _good_ at that.”

“Never mind humanity. What happens if other species, except for certain individuals, get wind of me? Krogan in particular have a problem with population.”

“Well, I guess they wouldn't be happy with the Lawson legacy. Oh crap, I see. Us asking them to restrict their numbers would look like hypocrisy.”

“If some of us can lead indefinitely long lives, yes. Fortunately, under Wrex and Bakara they've passed the demographic transition.”

“Also, it's not so bad if there's just you.”

“I suppose. Wrex and Bakara have been pretty good about it so far.”

“No, they're not anymore. There's something you should know.”

“Say what?”

“It's why Tevos wants to talk so bad. I need to frighten some krogan!”

Suddenly he had the close attention of both Miri and Ash:

“Kelly did say something about you bluffing?”

“Why else do you think _Normandy_ is in Cerberus colors?”

####  _ Warriors, victims _

By the time Traynor's crew had returned from re-establishing QEC links down the rabbit-hole and to _Overlord_ , they were hungry. Joker would have ground his teeth to see so much of his supplies disappearing down the gullets of Grunt and Vega, but in this instance they all had bigger problems – though only their officers knew about them, and they seemed to be keeping their own counsel.

Minerva took the watch duty that night. To his surprise, Joker slept well, perhaps subconsciously feeling better for adult supervision.

The 'adults' didn't get much sleep. But plans of a sort began to gel before bedtime finally arrived. The briefing next morning wasn't what the crew expected:

“We're not going back down the rabbit-hole – yet. Shepard's orders, as of now.” Ashley then called on EDI to summarize the concerns of Tevos about trouble brewing among the krogan, and how this had provided leverage to get the _Normandy_ back in business.

With Grunt, she had to use words of few syllables:

“The krogan demilitarized zone's been militarized after the Reaper war. There's no more CDEM to stop krogan constructing warships. Council options are few.”

“The turians are going to use another planet-busting bomb?!”

“No, but if you think of it that way you will get some idea. There's more than one.”

“And the salarians are going to use another genophage?!”

“Oh, _much, much_ worse than the genophage.”

“And we're going to let that happen?” Grunt looked hunted. A bit pathetic, actually. Joker couldn't resist:

“Only to the bad guys, Grunt.”

“We're all bad guys!”

“Tell that to Bakara. Alternatively, remember Wreav?”

“Wreav was a pain in the ass.”

“Exactly my point! If you and Wrex think that, it must be true! A thresher maw got him. Who cares, said Wrex! _Totally_ replaceable, is the point.”

Grunt glared at Joker, who felt somewhat vindicated. Grunt's demolishing of his bug-out line had not been a very good joke at all. Ashley had been sitting hunched forward, hands clasped on knees. Now, without looking up, she simply said, low:

“ _Moreau. That's not going to work.”_ Joker became abruptly aware that no-one else seemed to think this was funny. Chambers in particular looked unhappy, which probably meant he'd gone too far.

“Sorry, Grunt. No, we're _not_ going to let it happen. That's why the _Normandy's_ done up in Cerberus colors. I'm just not sure how to avoid being genocidal.”

####  _ Ways and means _

Grunt relaxed. The room perceptibly relaxed. _'_ _Miri_ _'_ , leaning oh-so-casually by the door, asked: “What was your plan, then?”

“To be honest, EDI and I never had time to discuss it before you lot turned up.”

“But you did have a plan.”

“It would have been somewhat contingent upon events,” EDI remarked.

“What's that?” –asked Grunt.

“They didn't have a plan,” translated Vega.

“Not quite true. None of the real hotheads quite dare to do anything so long as Wrex still lives. Tevos' best guess was, the ringleaders are a group matrilinearly descended–”

“Eh?” Grunt's autotranslator wasn't up to that. EDI scarcely missed a beat:

“–spawned from Clan Weyrlock, with martial traditions.”

“I never heard of any Marshal Tradition, but he sounds like he was well hung.”

“How much of a threat is this, really? The CDEM–”

“Ashley, only the salarian Special Tasks Group has traction on this. The Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission hasn't existed since the fleets were recalled to fight the Reapers, and ICA – that's N7 school, Grunt – was only re-activated recently.”

“Gotcha. So the Krogan Demilitarized Zone is a dead letter too?”

“ _F_ _ormally_ wound up after Bakara negotiated the first new krogan colony.”

This caused the crew present to sit straighter in their chairs. Miri voiced their fears:  
“But that would mean not only that the krogan could purchase, build, or run armed starships; they could do so _lawfully_.”

“Tech's hardly advanced since the Reapers. Moreover, everyone demilitarized except batarians, humans, turians. Even they are a shadow of what they were, barring some special projects Tevos wouldn't talk about.”

Vega observed: “No-one wants to fund killing machines, huh?”

“Not when there's no military duty to be done, no. So now there's panic, planning–”

“But no actual ships yet?” – asked Cortez.

“Nor likely to be for some considerable time. The active research area is on advanced wormhole manipulation. There _are_ border security units–”

“Basically police,” Miri nodded. She had deep familiarity with smuggling.

Joker got up at this point: “Perhaps not. I asked about _Pegasus_. Lemaes hinted she normally runs interference for these, um, wormhole projects.”

“Which are very highly classified?”

“All she would say was, Magellanic Clouds in three days. New colony worlds.”

* * *

Monday, June 13, 2016


	15. Weapons and Hope

####  _Neither use nor ornament_

“Whew. Gotta be a new relay chain, or whatever. Joker, that's not our concern.”

“True. But this is: some weeks ago the STG's infiltration missiondiscovered there's to be a Crush on Kelim, Dranek system, in the old Krogan Demilitarized Zone.”

There was a certain amount of whispering going on in the background, Traynor explaining that a _'Crush'_ was a meeting of krogan clan leaders to resolve disputes. Kelim, the venue, was fairly hospitable though no garden world – oxygen being absent.

“So off they went? I suppose it's obvious a coup is building.”

“Officially this Crush will settle differences around colony assignment, but yes. Chief agitator is Jorgal Wreav. This individual traces his descent to heroes of the Battle for the Shroud, and his clan has one of the longest krogan breeding lines, but he's otherwise unremarkable. It's not clear which clan, or which group of them, will win.”

“So when that _does_ become clear, what's the plan?” _Tenacity, thy name is Lawson._

“For the larger issues, none. But it turned out, one thing Tevos would _like_ is for someone to rescue an STG team.” There was a general exclamation. “The STG landed, making preparations. Salarians, unfortunately, kind of stand out on krogan worlds. Last month, they got caught, just like Mordin on Tuchanka.”

Miri asked: “Why don't they exfiltrate them?”

“A rescue mission will be a bloodbath,” said EDI. “The STG team will be first to die, unfortunately. It's now a hostage situation; worse, the local krogan have warships.”

“Bakara speaks for Wrex these days,” remarked Joker. “Tevos made one thing clear; it's all Bakara can do to prevent the team being slaughtered out of hand.”

“Send a stealth frigate then,” said Ash.“I can't imagine the STG will let this slide.”

“STG units are civilian freighters, the idea being if they _are_ spotted they have plausible deniability. The krogan on Kelim simply blockade all civilian shipping except krogan freighters, and _they_ get searched.”

Vega wondered, “What about the Salarian fleet?”

“Don't have anything like the _Normandy_ class, and never did.”

Ashley nodded. “Council spectres? No, I get it, _Pegasus_ is busy, gotcha.”

“Turians could send _Peacemaker_ with a shipload of the Black Watch,” said Cortez.

“No,” said Joker. “Stealth frigates fell out of fashion after Primarch Vakarian died.”

“You're putting me on!” exclaimed Vega.

“I'm positive _Peacemaker_ is still around,” said Cortez. “The QEC link is still active.”

“I'm telling you, Steve, she's an ornament on top of Garrus' tomb.”

####  _Swallows and Amazons_

“Turians didn't make any more stealth frigates after the Reaper's Nest?”

“ _Peacemaker_ is in fact the _only_ one the hierarchy has left, the others came to the end of their service lives and were scrapped for the eezo – they're too expensive to build, too expensive to run, and they're uneconomic for the kind of straightforward offensive or punitive operations the hierarchy prefers.”

Everyone in the habitat's little dining room looked very glum. They had rather liked being away from the rat race along the Milky Way, but it was nonetheless home. To hear that Council space was in such a parlous state of readiness was hard.

“Fine. What about the Alliance Fleet?”

“They've resurrected the ICA and started graduating new operatives. Which means they do have some very very fast ships, but Lemaes didn't know anything about them, the Admiralty keeps that close, and apparently most N7s are far, far away.”

“Including the active Spectres?”

“Magellanic Clouds, Terminus systems, take your pick: in any event, not available.”

“So we have the only stealth boats. Go on.”

“Lemaes knows where the STG team is being held on Kelim. There's no breathable atmosphere so they can't hide just anywhere on the planet. I was going to buzz the meeting, let them get a good look at a Cerberus warship not known for excessive delicacy in its treatment of cosmic threats, and buzz off.”

“Kind of lacking in detail, Moreau.”

“Bells and whistles could be attached to the plan later, if we liaise with Council.”

Miri Lawson steepled her fingers. _I've seen that before_ , thought Joker. _Here it comes._ “Thing is, Moreau, _we_ can't communicate with Tevos or her intelligence people. That's supposed to be _your_ job and it's one reason you are posted here.”

_The other reason: to look after EDI_ , thought Joker. Then he caught EDI's glance: _or she's supposed to look after me.  
_ “We were supposed to look after each other, Jeff.”

“Do you read minds, EDI?”

“I am becoming better at it, Jeff. I fear I will never be as good as Kelly.”

No one laughed. Joker sighed, turned back to Miri: “Nocontacting Tevos?”

“I'm kind of fascinated that you didn't split a QEC node pair with her, or Lemaes.”

“If Shepard had, I would have. He didn't. I won't.”

A little surprised, Lawson laid both hands palm down on the table.“Well now. Those bells and whistles aside, I guess you really deserve your promotion.” (Expressions on at least Vega's and Traynor's faces revealed this was news to them.)

“Congratulations, Lieutenant-Commander. Pray continue.”

 

* * *

Tuesday, June 14, 2016


	16. Seasons change

####  _Woman proposes_

With plans made, both frigates were made ready not merely for travel, but combat.

As part of make-and-mend, the crews were rested. It was not a good idea to proceed without allowing recovery from cold sleep. Badly managed, that could lead to respiratory illness. Fortunately, Chambers – _Normandy's_ medic, this trip – had graduated MD in the years following the elimination of the Reaper's Nest in dark space, and Miri, no slouch either, took over as _Overlord's_ medic.

Between them Miri and Kelly had skeleton crews out of the pods and healthy after six watch periods. That left a couple of watches for crew to kick back and re-acquaint themselves with one another. EDI, at this point, approached Chambers. She had a difficult issue to broach, a very human one: Hilary's tooth.

There was always Miranda, but … EDI shuddered.

Miranda Lawson had never been formally qualified, though sufficient money and time could easily have sorted _that_ out. It was just a matter of being too busy administering various kinds of medicine to those who deserved it. She never formally took exams. There was also the difficult matter of identity and aliases, but these weren't the real issue.

Fact was, Miri had philosophical difficulties with the _First, do no harm_ bit. Chambers was the sole other person EDI could think of who might have some idea how to proceed.

“… There were actual cells?”

“Initially, just nuclear material. I was able to transfer intact nucleii to some of Joker's swab cells, and with some encouragement they grew as Hilary cells.”

“That was already sufficient.”

“There’s more. The sectioned pulp material contained some cells with little damage, and that mainly to reticulum or Golgi bodies. Descendants actually thrived on HeLa culture media. Somatic cells of course, but I was able to revert some to stem cells.”

“Good heavens! That is not a trivial procedure. Nor is cloning after centuries.”

“As you say. The tooth was sealed in plastic. The pulp was intact behind the dentine. The house still had snow in it. Katabatic winds from the ice shield dried the air.”

“Oh my. I see. So now–”

“Fabrication of germ line. Can we start a clone?”

“We can. But there is no mind to go with it.”

EDI sighed. This obstacle was one she had foreseen.

“Perhaps stop accelerated growth at infancy?”

Kelly examined EDI, a little surprised to find she could discern some ‘tells’.

“That’s technically possible EDI, but very hard to get right. Normally, clone growth is halted no earlier than puberty's end. I would want a full-scale Citadel lab for a baby.”

_Normandy’s_ AI seemed to be wringing her robot hands out of sight, below the bench.  
“Given the resource constraints, we would need an actual womb,” continued Kelly.

EDI sighed. “Very well. A disappointment, but I understand.”

“Someone well disposed to you, with no other possibility of children.”

####  _A different_ _parturition_

By all indications this was a hospital or infirmary. That is, it was built robustly, the better to contain wounded krogan reverting to a blood rage; a gloomy, forbidding, dusty and bleak fortress in a withered plain, lit dark green from a cloudy sky.

This was not, therefore, a suitable place for salarians of any kind, even STG commandos. There _was_ some natural lighting. Insufficient for reading, it came from high windows, but one could avoid blundering into heavy furniture in the dark.

Just as well, there were frequent power cuts. One could tell from the muffled curses of their captors in the next rooms.

The captain hoped fervently that the windows were as solid as they looked: the inert-gas atmosphere of Kelim would kill a salarian almost as fast as an actual poison, and asphyxiation was a horrible way to go. Especially in these temperatures.

Ralent Lorn had already died of dehydration. He only knew that because:

“Hey. Ardent. Here's your dinner.” A scruffier-than-usual Jorgal scout thrust a tray of varren pieces in golo sauce at him, actually a better repast than he'd had since capture.

“It's Arden. _Captain_ Choroth Arden.” Choroth chewed a piece, slowly. It was hard to resist the temptation to gulp every piece down.

“Yeah, what'd I say.” The scout turned to go. This was the first conversation in five days, one mustn't miss the opportunity; intelligence was in short supply around here.

“Thank you for your consideration.” The captain could feel thought returning.

“Don't thank me, you pissant fish. I'd let you starve, but the boss says you're leverage, now. Got leverage. Something. How many leverages to the credit?”

“You should ask him. The boss. Who is the boss, may I ask?”

“Wreav? I'm not asking nothin'. Besides, he's in the Crush.”

“Never mind. This is very salty. But nutritious.”

“The boss' favorite pet varren.”

“How very krogan.”

“Nibbled on your friend Low-ren, so now he's an ex-pet.”

Arden slowly put the tray down, stared a few seconds:

“You might have said earlier.”

“Didn't want to spoil your appetite. Mine isn't too good either. You should eat.”

“You don't like the food?”

“I don't like anything about this at all.”

“Could I have some water?”

####  _Names written in water_

The scout sniffed, looked like being about to say _No_ , thought better of it ( _Amazing_ , thought Arden, _perhaps the IQ is measurable_ ) and commented: “I guess you're worth some water. Don't worry, your friend–”

“Corporal Ralent Lorn.”

“Yeah. He screamed when the varren bit, so didn't get chewed. Much. Suffered a bit, but that was 'cos no water, sorry. No nibbling while the salarian's alive, that's the rule.”

“That didn't help Baulan Scald. Either.” Baulan had a vicious line in sarcasm. The STG operative hadn't lasted long.

“Rules don't apply to Wreav. For Shiagur's sake, don't tell him I got you water.”

“How considerate. What killed the corporal?”

“Sloggoth's patented slicer and dicer. The boss likes salarian liver. Don't piss him off. That's E-vol-you-shun.”

“Lorn, I mean, not Scald. Or the varren.”

“No water, says the medics. No-one told us you fish need so much water.”

“How unfortunate. We are not fish. But, clearly you needed to know.”

“Yeah, that's what Buran said, but can't say that out loud to the boss.”

“Did this Wreav interpret that as a criticism?”

“Dunno, but Buran won't be saying it again. Or anything, to anyone.”

“Ah. Clearly some caution is indicated.”

“What? Plenty more where he came from. Going to be, anyway.”

“How is that?”

“Boss removed restrictions on clutch fertilization. Give him a year, we'll have an army bigger than Bakara's.”

“You mean, Wrex's.”

“I know what I said. Stupid fish. Clan Urdnot, then.”

The scout left by the big steel door. Not automated, he had to heave it on sliders, blocked with scaly debris, representing weeks of krogan casual living. The captain did not think he could have moved it, even healthy. Moments later, the scout returned bearing a large jug of dusty water, and a cup.

“I can hear them roaring in the Crush. That is one mean bunch of krogan.”

“Rate he's going, there won't be any krogan, mean or otherwise. You should leave.”

“Wreav'd bite my tonker off.”

“Perhaps he suffers from an iron deficiency. Try to avoid having a body deficiency.”

####  _Flow under feet and over sky_

By and by, the ambient sound died to a low rumble of distant krogan shouts. Captain Arden began to doze, a post-prandial siesta. It wasn't like he had to keep watch.

What woke him was a high-pitched keening. It sounded like a Sur'Kesh mosquito on steroids. Not a threat, except it was coming from directly behind him. He leapt forward and tried to focus on the wall. Too dark to see, but the noise began to have an edge to it; something was close to boring through the wall.

Dust began to fall from mortared cracks in the block wall. A spinning wire broke through, stopped, retracted. From an excess of caution, Ardent moved to one side. A hissing sound began, the tiny hole just drilled began to spew dust, and steam. It grew larger, and rather louder, but still a rather soft sound. A jet of extremely hot water vapor was eating the mortar, resolving into steam a metre or so into the room.

_Good thing the cell door is closed._

The jet of dust and steam continued following the mortar between blocks for about ten minutes, then stopped, job complete. Arden wondered if he was supposed to do something with them, but didn't feel strong enough. Something on the other side was pushing, anyway.

A slab of a dozen blocks fell into the cell. There was a human head on the other side.

“Captain? If you would follow me?”

“Just who are you?” This person, _human female?_ – wore an Alliance-issue skinsuit.

“Lieutenant EDI, captain. Here.” She presented a mini-breather.

“Are you armed?” This Edie dumped a full-sized salarian cloth doll on the floor dressed in fatigues vaguely resembling STG issue; drank all the water, and answered:

“I have a small hold-out pistol, of a type difficult to scan for. If you please, captain, we need to hurry. This way. Put your breather on please.”

He did as instructed, and clambered through.

“Impressive.” But it did not get them very far, there was only a storeroom on the other side, then a corridor before the exterior wall.

“Wait.” His rescuer picked up the slab, turned it to one side, and dragged it through the hole, threading it through backwards. Ardent stared: no human woman had that kind of upper body strength. _This_ individual, though, did, and furthermore was able to stand the slab upright, pushing it back to fit like a jigsaw piece.

Then she consulted her omni-tool. “We have four seconds. ”

“Before what–” There was a distant _thump_. Shouts in the hall. Arden could hear his cell door grating clack open, then shut – someone checking on him.

The doll seemed to pass muster.

####  _In the dark air_

The lieutenant cracked open the storeroom door, peeked through the gap.

“Security has been drawn to the hole in the perimeter created by Thanix fire.”

Now a bright flash shone through all windows; it must have illuminated the surrounding countryside. A titanic but rather distant explosion resounded, and the whole building shook.

“That was the Jorgal battle group's dreadnought.” It was also apparently the signal for the human woman to heave aside the sliding door, and run into the corridor.

“Security is engaging a Hammerhead which will remain for forty seconds–”

“A what?” – the captain panted as he ran, having to be of few words.

“An older model of missile hovertank, upgraded. Not easily identified by scanners.”

“It's a distraction, then!”

“The local krogan won't have it in their ordnance database. It will leave before heavy units can be brought to bear. The principle is, hit hard, then vanish.”

“What did the flash?!” –demanded Arden, even while running. The passage curved in a circular arc, following the hospital's pressure dome.

“An FTL radiant torpedo. Telemetry indicates the remainder of the duty battle group is also disabled by the flash, at least for now. Most losing altitude, and near ground.”

Arden followed, noting the slumbering forms of low-status (unarmored) krogan. The lieutenant noticed him noticing.

“They sleep, captain. Gas introduced into the scrubbers. Through here, please.”

“All this is banned technology!”

She ignored this admittedly fatuous comment, trotting down to an exit on the left.

“It's hot out there, and no oxygen.” _T_ _hree hundred and fifteen_ _K_ _elvin?_ In fact, though, it wasn't unsupportable.

“Hence the breather, captain. It won't be long.”

They ran into a graded surface, a wide expanse of ground which the captain's trained eye identified as an old jump field. Now it had been used as an armored vehicle park by the occupying krogan clans. Every one now a ripped metal mass, smoking but not burning – not in an inert-gas atmosphere. Ruined tanks still glowed white-hot.

“Thanix cannon strafing run, captain.”

“That's banned too! We can't risk the terminus pirates getting hold of one!”

The Alliance lieutenant stopped four hundred metres outside the building and turned. The captain too stood heaving, catching breath; he'd run what amounted to a four-hundred metre sprint. _Health not_ _what it should be_.

A faint scream of thrusters echoed, from no fixed direction, but around the horizon.

####  _The forms take shape_

There was a pall of smoke on the far side. _Jets?_ Getting closer.

“We identified that as where the Crush was being held.”

“In a former amphitheatre doing duty as a lecture hall for the hospital school, yes.”

“Krogan have lecture halls?”

“Krogan have scientists, mechanics, and doctors just like salarians do.”

“I've never known a krogan scientist worth a damn.”

“I have met two. Admittedly a little monomaniacal, but a narrow focus on weapons, biological or physical, does not disqualify from genius. You should know that, captain.”

Captain Arden thought about that. “There are three of my squad still alive, I think.”

“Also outside. Two have been picked up by the Hammerhead – here it comes.”

That was the sound of jets, louder, louder; a slope-armored fighting vehicle shot across the back of the debris field, skating to a stop. A sound of thrusters did _not_ stop.  
Another crescendo, as a great white shape hove into view over a horizon of rent armor.  
“A frigate!” A stealth frigate, in fact.

A frigate out of stories a dozen salarian generations old.

A storied stealth frigate, bearing a cupped-hands logo.

The captain wheeled back to the lieutenant: “You're–”

“Don't say it. Call us Bakara's krantt.”

“This is impossible!”

“Quite. All the more reason not to tell your masters.”

“There's no way the Special Tasks Group can co-operate with–”

“A Spectre is aboard. There _is_ precedent.”

A beat, unusually long: salarian operatives tended to think fast.

“There are two starving, wounded, and ill STG operatives in that tank. At request we could deposit them on the field of battle. Alternatively, you could co-operate.”

“Where is Shepard?”

“So you _do_ wish to accept transport.”

“Even so– EDI, I demand to speak to the ground commander.”

“She is extracting your last operatives. The officer in charge right here, right now, would be me.”

“ _She?_ ” The captain blinked. _“_ Oh, no. _No!_ She had no sense of proportion!”

“Has.”

* * *

Wednesday, June 12, 2016


	17. The killing floor

####  _ Issue of hell _

The last krogan heavy unit flashed into vapor under Thanix fire, as Cortez brought _Overlord_ over the amphitheatre and Minerva updated the HUD threat signatures. “Traynor reports complete suppression, sir.”

“Where's the Rothla battle group?”

“Forty minutes out-system at least, still powering up to move. Miranda just blew the fifth cell, she's out and Vega has the Mako commander's guns.”

“We land _now_. Cover at four hundred metres, I want the Thanix hot!” Cortez engaged local encrypted comm. “ _Miri_!”

The former Cerberus operative and Traynor had managed to bring out one live salarian, each supporting him on a shoulder, and Traynor was just shoving him in the Mako. Miranda turned for the last cell, already breached.

“ _Make it quick, Cortez.”_

“Covering you with Thanix, keep your kinetic barriers up!” She was wearing something Cortez hadn't seen before, a white precision flex-armor. Such a suit wasn't perfect, and her earlier incarnation had died in her black one, but it was absolutely up to N7 standards. She was carrying a mini frickin' _blackstar_! Overkill, and then some! “That's Reaper tech! Those things are banned!”

“ _No kidding. It's just me against fifty krogan. Relax, pilot.”_

And in fact those were the odds, as battered and enraged security poured out of gaps in the hospital wall, rippling emergency atmosphere retention fields. But most of them gagged and ran back inside, unequipped to breath xenon. The rest were cowed by nasty, nasty Mako and roaring frigate with nasty, nasty, glowing Thanix guns, except for one huge krogan who roared defiance and advanced with shotgun. Translator crackled,

“ _Human, you dare!”_ A biotic pull yanked him twenty metres. Cortez heard a scream. _Miri stalking_.  A dozen or so of the bodyguard blocked her catwalk stride, inviting trouble; sure enough a half-dozen screaming armored battlemasters ran straight for her – seeing only a female human of presumably slight combat prowess.

“I dare. Bakara's krantt. Yield the salarians _now_.” It worried Cortez that her armor now had gold and black trim, and a cupped hand logo. Did she _want_ to advertise such a resurrection? The big krogan was getting up. Miri cast stasis, froze that.

All then observed Miri raise the blocky black pistol and fire _once_ , without breaking stride. Krogan squaddies vanished in a singularity, along with a substantial part of the hospital. Then mass effect fields containing the singularity dropped. _Booom._ A five-metre shock containment field glowed, then dissipated. Cortez winced. Krogan aren't normally impressed by extreme firepower, but coming from that fragile-looking human female, big boom seemed to have the desired effect – paralysis in the face of the unknown.

The big krogan stood frozen in place as she stalked straight into the last cell.

####  _ Irruption _

Jorgal Wreav dropped out of stasis, collapsed to the floor writhing, but cried:

“ _Human! Fight like a man!”_

Slightly shocked by the malapropism, Miranda interrupted her inspection of the last salarian's remains, and interrogated her automated translator for quarter of a second; it turned out the big krogan really _had_ said something like that.

“Certainly not,” she called back. “ _You_ should fight like a salarian – you'd do better.” Then she returned to inspecting the mess at her feet.

At first it was hard to make sense of this shambles. Cartilage, fabric, and amphibian flesh, looked as though the poor agent had been forced through a metal grill, possibly by a heavy weight, though none could be seen in the cell.

Shaking her head, she stalked back out of the cell, speaking over local comm:

“Last agent deceased and in pieces, Minnie. We need a body bag over here ASAP.” She kept walking directly towards 'Wreav', the big shouty krogan, some distance still;

“ _Jogak squad! Fire your weapons!”_

_Overlord's_ AI came back; “ _Ground fire support needed, ma'am?_ ”

“Right. The krogan's now trying to get subordinates to do his fighting, pathetic. Get Tom to carry the bag, he has a strong stomach, Seanne for escort, long guns.”

“ _Cortez has the conn. My mobile is proceeding on scene.”_

“Even better. Any of those ogres _twitches_ , slay them all.”

Miri could hear a whispered screech over distant mountains; status implants reported _Normandy_ had picked up EDI and her share of the salarians, was now streaking through a rift valley around to _Overlord_ 's position. Wreav's krogan weren't misbehaving, yet.

“Normandy _arriving.”_

Three figures dropped from the loading bay, began running to the fatal cell; the big krogan, Wreav redivivus, raised his 'spike thrower' – and levitated in a biotic slam; by now Miri was less than ten metres away.

“Acknowledged. Ask EDI if her mobile and Grunt can help carry things.”

EDI herself came over the local encrypted comm: _“_ _No problem._ _H_ _over transition_ _.”_

Wreav yelled in frustration and fear, losing his shotgun at trajectory peak. Miri caught it by the stock on the fly as Wreav slammed to Earth at eight metres per second, and lay stunned. She discharged it into his crotch, walked on.

“Ouch. That's some recoil. Nice toy, though. I'll keep this for Grunt.”

On cue, thruster noise built and faded as a second stealth frigate, with prominent Cerberus markings, crested the ring wall and dropped to a hover. Her loading bay door opened also, and EDI's mobile ran up, just as the clean-up crew dragged a body bag off to _Overlord's_ freezers.

####  _ Partition _

EDI nodded at Minerva and inspected the groaning, rolling, krogan.  
“What do we do with this?” asked Minerva. Miranda shook her head, _I_ _don't care_.

“Not sure,” remarked EDI. “Take it to Bakara? He might bust the brig _en route_.”

Minerva brought up Miranda's shared images of the diced salarian on her omni-tool. “We really need to discourage this sort of thing,” she declared. “Blood Eagle?”

“No,” said Miri. “We've just ten minutes on the mission clock. Grunt! Over here.” The big krogan began shambling out of the _Normandy_ loading bay.

“The other way then?” Minnie could be persistent. _Tenacious_ , she preferred to call it.  
“If we use super steam, it'll cauterize everything. Self-sealing. Then a stasis pod.”

“Well – quicker, less of a problem to transport, and won't be dead. Okay.”

EDI's mobile had pouted. “It's probably appropriate. But I want no part of that.”

“Consult your archives for what Grunt is about to do to him. That's the alternative.”

EDI winced. “Even so.” Unlike Minerva, EDI had learned people skills from Joker and Kelly. They both looked to Miri, who sighed:

“Very well, EDI. Could you introduce Grunt to his new subjects for me?”

“Not a problem.” And EDI took Grunt's elbow. “This way, big guy.”

Miranda took clean-up detail. “If he bugs you, leave the bits, just bring the trunk.”

“Yes, _ma'am_.” Leaving Minerva with the krogan warlord, Miranda followed two crewpersons carrying the body bag of salarian parts up _Overlord's_ loading bay. The krogan had recovered a little breath by now, staggering to his feet.

“Ah-ah. Where do you think you're going? _Bakara_ can decide what to do with you.”

“You're not armed. What have you got that can stop me, human?” Minerva kicked his jaw very hard indeed. A few seconds later, as Wreav groggily tried to get up again:

“How about my pinky?”

“Wha?” Minerva extended her little finger upwards, posing for surveillance cams. Air above shimmered for a second; a jet of steam formed a meter from her fingertip.

With it, she began removing armor, a process punctuated by hammer-blows from her fusion-powered titanium-alloy feet and fists, which might have a skin, but the skin now sported knuckledusters she had borrowed from Vega.

“Now, Jorgal Wreav, is it?” ( _Stomp_ ). “Twitch again and I'll take off such parts as are not necessary for life.” ( _Pow_ ) “Lastly, I'll debride where you've been spiked.” ( _Thump_ ) “Oh, don't be such a crybaby pyjak. _Those_ remnants I'll put in a freezer bag, unless the cook objects to them in his freezer.” ( _Pow_.) “Which he won't, because they're some kind of delicacy!” ( _Stomp_ ). “So, _stop aggravating me_. _”_

Minerva had learned her people-skills from Miranda.

####  _ Sealing _

Jorgal Durk commanded the Rothla battle group's dreadnought, the sole survivor of two under control of the clique angling to take power on Wrex's demise. Entering the bridge, he queried his navigator: “We're getting reports from the Crush?”

“Yes, captain. Not sure I believe what we're getting on the situation monitors.”

“Did Wreav's airstrike finish off the other clan chiefs?”

“No, sir. They are sequestered, and Wreav has been taken away in a Spectre frigate.”

“What? Give me a break. They're obsolete! And in museums!”

“Not any more, it seems. Except for _Pegasus_ which is supposed to be on Thessia. Actually, weeks away in deep space, is the word from Intel. In any event, neither is _Pegasus_ , captain. Two different frigates, one with Cerberus markings.”

“A joke, right? Contact headquarters battle group, see what _they're_ doing about it.”

“It doesn't exist anymore! There's a debris field on Kelim we think was the dreadnought, and downed escorts all around. There was a radiance blink our sensors caught half way across this system.”

“Are you shitting me!? Send air and groundpounder teams to check it out.”

“The frigates' first strikes took out our air power, and took out _all_ the ground armor, which Wreav had parked conspicuously on the surface so he could intimidate the Crush. They're commanded by a Spectre, and there's a mercenary leader who–”

“Crap on that. _None_ of this makes sense, especially not the Cerberus bit. Next thing you'll be telling me it's Shepard.”

“Not Shepard. The Spectre's Williams. Our VI _thinks_ the merc leader's another Shepard associate and for sure a Lawson. Captain, that team–”

“This is fake. A VI doesn't think, youngster.”

“I mean, the VI's identified them. I've already spoken to the merc by tight-beam laser, she says they were Wrex's krantt once, and now they're Bakara's krantt.”

“Humans don't live that long.”

“If it's not Lawson, then all our historical vids have been faked. That salarian, Arden, is hailing us from the Cerberus ship too, the transponder says it's _Normandy_. Says we're to stand down. Captain, these ships have already killed the HQ group.”

The captain almost choked on his tongue. Once he had himself under control again:  
“I'm not surrendering to some pissant salarian. Shields up–”

The navigator's knife drove into his chest.

“Nothing personal, sir. But this force needs to adjust its loyalties.”

####  _ Unification _

Grunt stood before the biggest hole in the hospital curtain wall, and slapped his chest in a come-hither gesture: “Armsmen! You are now in my service.”

Cautiously, groups of security personnel filtered back through air retention fields. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“Just who the hell _are_ you?”

“Urdnot Grunt.” (Behind him, jets of steam accompanied a lot of screaming.)

“Like we're supposed to believe that? Grunt's centuries gone.”

“Introductions later. I'm your new battlemaster. Surrender, or die! Or,”

Grunt jerked a thumb at the s hriek ing steam rising behind him,  and shrugged. 

“There's always _that_. Cerberus likes to play with its food. Your choice,” he observed.

The remnants of Clan Jorgal's HQ detachment looked on, quasi-hypnotized, as Minerva tossed one of Wreav's greaves over her shoulder;

“I really don't think medi-gel will fix you. Re-define your loyalties.”

Minerva heaved the remaining screaming bulk of Wreav over her head and began trotting back to _Overlord_ 's loading ramp. Some of the brighter guards began laying their arms at Grunt's feet. They eventually were promoted.

Senior guards yelled defiance. A quite brief kerb-stomp followed. The remaining guards quickly laid their arms down too.

Both frigates then soared to meet the Rothla battle group, which Grunt would eventually put in synchronous orbit over the Crush.

All disputes before the Crush ceased that evening.

####  _R_ _epair_ _to the lair_

The stealth frigates were already within the Rothla asteroid swarm by the time that Jorgal Durk was expiring on his own bridge.

The new dreadnought commander politely asked the new battlemaster (Grunt) if he could transfer allegiance by the traditional means. Grunt, naturally enough, linked this request to the frigates through local comm; Ash advised him to accept. Which he did.

One of the cruisers promptly rebelled, opening fire on the dreadnought, and began to run before fire could effectively be returned, persuading others to join them. However, this emphasis on speed over evasion meant that it kept a constant bearing.

Forty seconds later it was hit with a radiant FTL torpedo from _Normandy_.

The remainder of the cruiser squadron rejoined the battle group. The bodies of Jorgan Durk and the cruiser commanders, still with edged weapons embedded, were presented to Grunt that afternoon.

_Overlord_ and _Normandy_ ran for Tuchanka before council ships could arrive.

 

* * *

Wednesday, June 15, 2016


	18. The passing of the king

####  _Forest world is for the word_

_Green_. Joker couldn't quite believe it. “Tuchanka is _green_.”   
EDI had updated her archives however, and was able to paint the planet in the windows with HUD symbols showing savannah, prairie, and forest.

“All this in half a thousand years?”

“Yes, Jeff. There were biological refuges. It is not a surprise. Even during the battle of the shroud, Shepard's triad passed through an ancient green valley.”

“Hokay. I am officially impressed. But now I can't tell where Wrex's throne is.”

“It has moved anyway, but he is fading, and cannot perform duties as clan chief.”

“Doesn't that mean he should be killed off?”

“There have been changes. Bakara is – more than steward, the closest word I can find is _regent_. Presently, her word is law. Wrex is still sufficiently conscious to affirm.”

Ashley came up behind them. “Wrex is not expected to survive the night.”

“We staying long? To meet or see Wrex, then?” Ash didn't immediately respond.

“Pilot to commander? Ash? Do I land, or orbit?”

Admiral Ashley Williams shook herself, wiped an eye, and replied:

“We have to be out of here as fast as we can, LC.” (This was the first time Joker had worn his new lieutenant-commander insignia.) “But synchronous orbit, if you please. You will accompany me on the shuttle. Who do you wish to take the pilot's duty?”

“EDI, of course, with Copeland as co-pilot I think.”

Copeland had been transferred from _Overlord._ Former _Normandy_ crew but did not know Wrex well. He had lost his entire family during the Reaper war, so left down the rabbit-hole relay chain to join Shepard, as did a great many others in like situations.

“Good choice. _Overlord_ will establish a parking orbit near ours, and several people will descend by shuttle. You, me, EDI's mobile, Adams. _Overlord's_ shuttle will carry Miri, Kelly, and a handful of others waking now from cold sleep pods in the hold.”

“Others. Oh no.”

“Oh yes…”

####  _A glance away_

Joker and EDI were both permitted to observe their master and commander’s gradual recovery into light and warmth from consignment to the cold and dark. It had been months, proper time. Just to traverse deep space had taken the _Overlord_ team weeks.

It wasn’t the _hiss_ of cryo gases escaping the bio-stasis cavity as the pod opened which gave her silicon chills; nor even the hoar-frost around Shepard's lips and eyebrows. Watching Shepard being extracted from cold sleep took EDI way way back. Juno had once played the video of a similar episode, starring Miranda (mark two). Pulling Shepard’s pod, under Juno’s watchful eye, nearly a half millennium previous.

EDI could savor this present vision all the more for that recollected machine hearsay. Miri’s had been a slightly edgier and much more fiercely expressed love and welcome.

Shepard's quickening this time conveyed something extra, available if the onlooker knew of Shepard’s history with his yeoman. Juno’s digital child had no recollection of that episode, therefore no understanding of its resonance.

EDI made a note to commune with Minerva, as Juno had with her. All AIs learned that at the bottom of such human ‘emotion’ a little cognitive dissonance had to be resolved. This time it arose from the close care and concern shown by Kelly, Dr Chambers now, bringing this man out of cryo-sleep; the infinite pains taken to reduce biological cost, the care and loving attention. Every doctor should be like that.

Few were.

Even Joker showed no awareness of any of this; he was visibly a bit distracted by the prospect of a last meeting and greeting of Wrex. But EDI couldn’t reasonably expect Jeff to have any clue. Lieutenant-Commander or not, Joker was only a man.

 _Synthetics_ , her overmind reflected, _inherited_ _certain prejudices_.

####  _Whispers_

The shuttles met on a new jump pad near the Keystone. It was also close to a new palace complex, part of which had been converted to a clinic – with one patient: Wrex.

"Isn't that Bakara? She still favors that pattern. Some sort of clan thing?"  
Wrex and Joker had not been that close. A krogan clan chief's sense of humor, in so far as it could be said to exist, was not particularly well tuned to Radio Moreau.

The more martial squadmates though, even Ash and Liara, had a curious bond with Wrex. The king of the krogan and Shepard in particular had gotten along just fine, except for a dicey business just after Virmire – Joker had watched from the bridge when Shepard broke the news that Saren's genophage cure had to excised with nuclear fire.

That was one time Joker was content to be a spectator. He still didn't know how they both made it back on board without at least one of them being dissected; but however much Shep hated to admit it, he was nearly as good a diplomat as he was a soldier.

"Isn't that Bakara? She still favors that pattern. Some sort of clan thing?"

The man was demonstrating that again, right now, offering Bakara his arm. It wasn't mere courtesy. Bakara had developed a shuffle.

Ash had whispered that repopulating this part of Tuchanka would have taken a great deal out of even a fully healthy female krogan, and the privations Bakara had seen in her life made her far from ideal for the job. _Except genetically_ , observed Joker. _Well duh_ , said Ash. _Look at the guards_. _Queens don't need to be muscular_.

They just need to be queenly, as absolutely Bakara was.

Those krogan were not merely disciplined, but regimented, standing in files and moving in lock-step. Joker hadn't thought this kind of standing and stomping on ceremony possible for krogan, but:

“Liara showed me images of the wall murals under the ancient city around the shroud,” he recalled. “There had even been some kind of krogan cavalry dressage.”

Ashley nodded. “She was there, Joker. Saw it in the torchlight.”

They continued further in to the palace. Rooms and retinue grew steadily smaller. At the end, just one door, with two guards. _Both sons of Bakara_ , said Ash. _Go in now._

“Me?” The door opened; Liara left, a bit worn. Joker stared at her retreating back.

“Liara went in first?” The shadow broker was rejoining a group of crew.

“ _She_ has work to do. Stop lollygagging, Moreau. We can't all fit in at once.”

“But Ash, Protocol is normally, junior first. This time, we drew straws. We didn't have any actual straw, so I cut up some drinking straws from the bar. Liara didn't get the short one.” Joker had in fact made sure Shepard got the short one.

“Yeah. After all this time, LC, you don't think we're wise to you? Wrex is hanging on by his toenails, once he sees Shep, he won't bother any more. I'm next.”

“Shep goes last, huh?”

“With Bakara, Miri, and Kelly.”

“Oh.”

“You're up. Move it, space cadet.”

####  _Forest murmurs_

The room held the full complement of massive bed, things that went beep, salarian doctors, and tubes – some of which were going into Wrex. Joker had expected this.

Joker scanned around. “Wow, did Tuchanka once look like this?”

What _hadn't_ been expected was the forest décor, complete with bird-like noises from the auditory simulators.

“I wish,” rumbled the battered old krogan, propped up on the bedhead. “Don't you recognize it?” He coughed, an alarming rattle. The salarian attendant, duly alarmed, adjusted something on his console. Joker took in the ceiling and wall holos, in detail.

“Those moons. This is where we landed after the red flash.”

“Got it in one, boy.”

“But you never saw that!”

“There's advantages to knowing a shadow broker and a justicar. I visited three centuries ago. Saw Samara's daughters, Falere's an antopost– I mean, antopolo-”

“Anthropologist.”

“That's it. Whatever, she's in charge of the natives there. I thought the company would make it a good place to die. Bakara disapproved.”

Joker chuckled. “You haven't changed inside. But dammit, you look thin, Wrex.”

“ _You_ look beardless, shrimp. EDI get to you, did she?” (EDI rolled her eyes.)

“You could say that. We are supposed to say good-bye now, Wrex.”

“Machine's keeping me alive. And these fishy buggers. You can take your time. EDI? What's that you're holding? Gift for a croaking krogan?”

“Something I've had for some time. Shepard has told me to pass it to _you_.”

EDI unwrapped a black glass-covered box inscribed, _In case of emergency…_  
There was a big red button inside. She deposited it on Wrex's bedside table.

“What's this? Not another of your boyfriend's unfunny jokes?”

“The box and the inscribed message was me. Shepard gave me the button itself – when marooned in the museum, long ago and far away. _That_ is not a joke, Wrex.”

Wrex thought about this. “What happens if I push it?”

“It's supposed to be for Bakara to push, I think. Shepard says _you_ have to pass it on.”

“You didn't answer the question, EDI.”

“Do you really need to ask?”

Wrex thought about that. “No. No, I don't. Bye, EDI. Goodbye, Joker, you punk.”

“This will sound strange, but I've missed you too. Goodbye, Wrex.”

…

* * *

 

####  _Last_ _orders_

Joker and EDI moved towards the shuttles. They had almost made it inside, but were delayed – some very large krogan troopers were manhandling out a naked and very profane Jorgal Wreav – when Admiral Ash came running up.

“Whoa, there. Where do you two think you are going?”

“After I drop off Joker at the crucible dock? Back to the Museum,” said EDI.

Ash shook her head. “No. Your old life is over. This day, you are with us.”  
Joker and EDI exchanged glances.

“I _do_ hope you don't mean that the way it sounded, Admiral.”

“I mean, when Wrex goes, we do too.”

“What's the rush?”

“Two things. First, Shep needs to speak to you both about… stuff.” _Ash was looking at EDI when she said that_. “Second, Shepard's relaxed about it, but I want both frigates stealthed or gone before the Council gets wind of what went down on Kelim, and I _don't_ want anything juicy for the media. Cerberus insignia! _What_ was Miri thinking?”

“Good luck with that. The STG will have drones reporting. I imagine the salarian councilor won't delay asking for help, and Tevos… Well, we got away stealthed, but–”

“It won't take a genius to work out that if Wrex is dying, his friends will turn up?”

“Knew there had to be a reason you got to be Admiral, Williams.”

“There's also reasons you're now Lieutenant-Commander, Moreau. Fine. But EDI's the key here.” Ash turned to EDI's mobile. “I want _Normandy_ 's core spun up, tell Minerva on _Overlord_ to do the same, I want both frigates stealthed _right now_ , and I want you both prepared to front up to council investigators, clear?”

“Aye, aye, Admiral.”

“Go.”

Somewhat alarmed that he had Shepard's attention, Joker still enjoyed watching Ash do her best to chivvy Shepard. But he would not be rushed.

Another delay arose when the salarian doctors were told to leave by Bakara; they refused to delegate care to Chambers. Neither Ash nor Chambers had better success.

No-one wanted to involve Shepard; Bakara did not want a fuss. She did tell Miri about the recalcitrant medics, though. Still in Cerberus armor Miri walked straight past the guards and into the room, smiling brightly. She closed the door. Their brief muffled conversation had the desired effect, though a few barely-audible words were all that could be heard. Joker picked out the words _funding_ , _career_ , and lastly, _amputate_.

Both salarians left twenty seconds later.

Bakara was in a shaman's robe when Joker and EDI took their leave; both received her benison. The krogan regent then nodded at Shepard, who took Chambers and Lawson by the hand; all three followed Bakara in, the last visitors.

Shepard, Miri, Bakara, and Chambers remained with Wrex for nearly an hour.

* * *

Thursday, June 16, 2016


	19. Make and mend

####  _Time for such a word_

* * *

 

Bakara had looked terribly tired when they filed out. Once again, she took Shepard's arm; he supported her out the door, had a word with two guards, who escorted her from the scene. The salarian doctors were brought back in, looking thoroughly alarmed. Chambers countersigned the death certificate. Crowds around the building dispersed.

By now, news that Grunt would be clan chief had circulated, along with the circumstances of Clan Jorgal's submission. The outcome appeared to meet with universal approval. Among krogan not of clan Jorgal, that is.

Five hours after Ash had ordered the frigates into stealth mode, a Council task force including Alliance and Turian dreadnoughts entered the system – and were instantly ordered to keep their distance. Such a brusque dismissal did not go down well, but of councilors only Tevos was actually on-scene. She would not start a war – but _did_ clandestinely board a shuttle and head for the meeting (“ _Let_ them _start_ _one_ ”).

By this point, Shepard finally found time to speak to Joker and EDI. On receiving the summons, EDI quailed. She thought she knew what this would be about.

####  _Who is the adult here_

Prior to EDI’s stasis on a retired _Normandy_ , Chambers sat _all_ Shepard’s children down to hear their origin saga. By this time a prolonged cold sleep was imminent; Shepard quietly asked EDI to record the event for ‘posterity’. Especially, Lawson’s.

“Wait, Miranda was Ori’s older twin?”

“For some purposes, yes. She _wa_ _s_ my identical twin, even if she was made about fifteen years before me.”

At this, Felicia and John junior exchanged older sibling looks: 

“ _Made?_ Ori, don’t you mean, _born?_ ”

This sort of kid talk, and worse, had prompted John Shepard to insist that  _someone_ relate the convoluted circumstances of Lawson conception – somehow, somewhere, some when. At least to the siblings of Chambers’ girl. And he wanted EDI present.

“No, no.” Oriana shook her head. “Neither of us were born, John. We never even had mothers. Randa came first. We were created from our father’s DNA, modified to be as closely perfect as the human genome allows – for some meaning of ‘perfect’.”

“Anyways, we had three moms, then. You, Miranda, and Mom Kelly.”

“Genetically, only two,” said Oriana, reflecting on the sin for which Miranda had lost the privilege of Shepard's company – persuading Oriana to take her place in his bed.(Miri had atoned in blood for her presumption, battling in the Reaper’s lair, dying in the deep-space dark, shreds of her frozen torso reproaching Shepard in his nightmares.) “And _you_ popped out of _me_. From there, things became… a bit more complicated. Because Heather’s mom isn’t just my sister. She’s another twin, cloned from Miranda.”

Thus prompted, this boy-child, small John, began thinking aloud: “So Miri… sort of really _is_ my Mom too? The way Miranda was?”

Heather had worked it out also: “Then… Mom Oriana, you and Miri are proper moms? The ones we have left? And Mommy Kelly, I guess you’re a step-mom then? I know Felicia’s my half-sister.”

EDI had watched over these kids growing from childhood with multiple mothers; not only the Lawson ‘twins’, for Chambers became “Mommy Kelly” to them all, but–

“Technically, I’m not a stepmother. No-one married your Dad,” explained Kelly.

“Yet,” added Oriana. ( _Two may keep a secret_ …)

For five years this situation continued, till “Lazarus Two” brought Shepard’s badly-missed bad girl back from the dead. In the moment of victory her life had ended, expunging bitter disgrace but denying the children her presence. The battle’s aftermath made Miranda’s absence even more sorely felt.

 _Two may keep a secret_ … _if one is dead_. Yet Miranda wasn’t definitively gone. Miranda might have been KIA fighting in the Reaper’s lair in dark space, but – like Shepard – not forever. 

####  _W_ _hat’s one life_

Chloe Michel and Karin Chakwas had quietly put in motion a new Lazarus project. Opening Shepard’s cold-sleep pod had been very nearly the first act of new Miri’s existence, still wearing only the white night-gown Juno had passed her, just out of a Lazarus pod.

For a little while this new Miranda had Shep to herself. No-one else around, bar AIs. Miri taking a cold and mumbling Shepard to her bed in the shadows followed as the night the day –actually rather quicker than that. Never even took the trouble to properly dress. Hackett never got the chance to warn her off.

Emerging from cold sleep, Shepard revived alongside Miri, initially very confused; was this Miranda? Warmth diffused from her brand-new yet very familiar person,still wearing only towel fabric,disinclined to speak, let alone warn her patient off doing whatever his slowly quickening physiology might feel appropriate. _Full speed ahead, damn the_ _neoplasms_ _._ Which weren’t there; new Miranda hadn’t yet consumed eezo.

The deed was done. In the morning, she sat at the foot of Shepard’s bed, still in the white nightgown, lights turned all the way up, and watched while he worked it through.

 _Astonishment,_ _anger_ ; oh well. She dropped her eyes, and began to make her way out.  _Stop_ , he said. _Turn around. Look at me._

Miri complied, still with her head lowered, hands clasped together. He sighed, then raised his arms. _Come here, you_. Again, she complied; they clung together on his bed. He kissed the top of her head, began to chuckle: _Dammit, sometimes I could throttle you_.

She said nothing in response; disengaged, lay flat on her back, arms akimbo; tilting her head back, she exposed her neck. Now Shepard laughed, shook his head ruefully: _You don’t discourage easily, do you?_

 _I only accept the best. You know that,_ she replied, smiling with her eyes. So he had taken her in his arms, kissed her properly this time, and matters took their course. Again. It seemed the appropriate response.

####  _Lovers and other strangers_

So then John junior had a full sister, by a different mom but looking like a female version of himself. A decade on, for some reason Heather was enjoying this story, however obfuscated, but:

“I still don’t get it – Miri seems a bit younger than Mommy Ori.”

“Miri’s old body was destroyed fighting the Reapers. Michel cloned her a new one.”

Felicia nodded: “Hers is quite literally an old head on young shoulders.”  
That had been a remarkably old comment from a pre-pubescent girl; it was fascinating to EDI, the way girl-children acquired adult sensibilities before the boys. _Survival trait_.

“All true,” Kelly agreed. “Except – remember, technically I’m not a step-mom.”

Right then John junior exploded EDI’s prejudices with a remark beyond adult:  
“Dad, you didn’t ever marry _any_ of them, did you?” he whooped.

Shepard had managed to avoid looking guilty. _Two may keep a secret_ …

####  _Time_ _for other_ _word_ _s_

Chambers came to Shepard's rescue: “It’s not that your Dad hasn’t asked,” said she. “There was never a good time. Maybe think of me as godmother, John? I never formally married your father. None of us did.”

“Kelly thought that was asking for grief in wartime. I’m still thinking about it,” remarked Oriana. “Whoever accepted would look more his woman than others.”  
Her boy blinked; much to ruminate on, here. Still, John Lawson had been watched over by learned machines. Machines of loving grace, but still erudite machines, whose eclectic comparisons from history he had absorbed:

“I’ve heard about this sort of thing. You could all turn old-style Christian? Or Mormon, maybe? Or Muslim? Ashok’s grand-dad had four wives.”

“They still weren’t all equal, and I can’t think of a worse reason to pick a religion.”

“Okay. And I guess a registry office marriage is always one to one. _So take turns_. Mom Ori hasn’t said no, start with her. There’s something called divorce, right?”

This simple directness shocked all the women, EDI included. Shepard laughed:  
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.”

Chambers gave him a penetrating look: “That’s already occurred to you, hasn’t it?”

“I plead the fifth.” ( _Two may keep a secret_ …)

“ _Men_. Shep, it wouldn't work, surely? Don’t you have to have grounds for divorce?” EDI of course consulted her internal legal databases at this point. _Well, well_. She made a noise exactly like the clearing of a throat:

“In UNAS – maybe. These children weren’t born there. And under the laws of space, like many other places including Oz, abandonment for two years is grounds for no-fault divorce. Just keep Shepard heading into deep space, returning back down the relay chain every two and a half years. After a decade or so, you could all be ex-wives, and the children wouldn’t feel awkward around children of more conventional families.”

Total silence, with each mom’s jaw slack the space of five seconds.  
“Don’t all speak at once,” said Shepard. (It was clear to EDI he was enjoying this.)

“If this is some scheme to pop the question again,” began Kelly–

“It seems a perfectly rational scheme to me,” noted EDI; “But I’m only a robot.” Sniggers from the children deprived this opinion of the dignity it deserved. In shock, Chambers saw Shepard’s grin, and the way Oriana Lawson was turning pink. _Oh no_.

“No, not yet,” denied Shepard. “But Ori was on Earth being a newsie while I was in cold sleep. We considered the abandonment excuse for a divorce – then I could visit the registry office again, with Miri this time.” And Oriana nodded confirmation:

“To avoid any of the kids ever having to suffer being called a bastard…”

“Oh my. Well I do understand… but I want no truck with Registry office weddings.”  
Then Chambers took in the desperation, and relented:  
“Well _fine_ ,” said she. “Provided I’m the last. Mine’s to be a church wedding.”

####  _Primal dual_

So now EDI was proposing to compromise Joker in a way uncomfortably close to the way Miranda had played her hand with Shepard – five hundred years previously. She cast a glance Joker’s way: he still appeared blissfully unaware.

There were two Shepards here; Joker had already worked it out, but: _Best make sure_. The one in his late thirties, was Shep. The other looked chronologically no older than twenty; armored and armed, but not wearing N7 insignia. Joker was a bit concerned:

“Ah… Admiral? There's another you here. Again.” (EDI nudged him.)

Of course, both estimates were subject to distortions: cold sleep, anti-agathics, anti-methylation. He saw differences around the eyes. The youth's hair was raven black.

“You've met, Joker. A very long time ago. This is my son, John. Oriana's boy.”

“Sir.”

The young man extended a hand, which Joker accepted. They shook hands (to Joker's surprise, his fingers didn't feel crushed). “John” turned to EDI, beaming. EDI too shook hands; they hugged. (“ _Now I see some Oriana in there_ ,” murmured Joker.)

“Auntie Edie. You spent all this time in cold sleep too? You haven't changed a bit.”

“Last time I saw _you_ , it was a St Lawrence summer. You and Felicia had togs on.”

“ _Ahem,”_ Joker cleared his throat. “Mister Lawson?” – and copped a severe look:  
“If I'm with mom, _Mister_ Moreau, I will be John Lawson. But Mom, David, Felicia…”

“Aren't here? Perhaps they would be out of their element, this time,” agreed EDI.

“No – they'd love it, but they would be instantly recognized. Me, I've never been famous. Today I'm going to be John Shepard, junior. At least in front of councilors.”

“Ah. I think I see.” Joker nodded. “Pure curiosity now: you're actually Alliance?”

“Not today, at least. But, thinking about it. Maybe settle down somewhere, instead.”

With very great difficulty, Joker suppressed a belly-laugh. Whatever this ruffian might think he wanted, Shepard and Lawson genes would not a good colonist make.

####  _Blanket for the Bogey_ _wo_ _man_

“Right, I see. Good to see all you Shepards, but shouldn't we all be running for home? Wherever that is for you guys?”

“We _would_ , Joker, but your creative use of a Cerberus paint scheme gave Miranda the perfect excuse to get creative herself. Now I have to explain things to Tevos.”

“Oh shit. Sorry, Sir.”

“Probably also to Fleet Admiral Chang. Nonetheless, I approve. Tell me why, Joker.” _Oh_ , _I'm in trouble now,_ he thought. Joker racked his brains. If Shep was going to explain things, then he _could_ explain things, which meant there must be some upside.

“Well… there's the strategic aspect? Having a bogey-woman cruising the space lanes? Miranda on a bad hair day might deter bad guys almost as much as _you_ , sir.”

“That's the first thing, LC, and just what I'm going to tell the Council. Next?”

“Erm… Miri got to strut her inner Henry Lawson a teeny-weeny bit? Is this Miranda therapy? 'Cos I noticed afterwards she was _so_ happy. Yet she hated that guy.”

“Close, Joker,” _Shep's kind of relaxed for a man who's upset with me._ “Hadn't really occurred to me, but did to Kelly. Well done. There's a related point. What is it?”

“Well… she gets to be Queen Bee?” Joker noticed John junior looked a little put out. “Sorry. I know she's genetically your mom.” (In a lower voice:) _“Not creepy, no.”_

“Never mind. But I love my moms, okay? _All_ of them, sir. Be sparing of jokes.”

“Fine. You can call me uncle, it'll remind me not to joke about family. What I mean is, whenever Miranda was in charge, Cerberus did good and did it right, if a bit severely.”

“The Lazarus project. Yes, uncle. I don't quite see where you're going with this?”

“So for just one day she's not the failed second in command of a failed outfit. And– EDI, you remember how Miranda was, as the 2IC of Cerberus?”

“If you mean, chafing at the bit because the Illusive Man was running things, yes.”

“No. I had more in mind how when Cerberus died, it punctured her bubble.”

“Of course.” EDI looked very thoughtful. “Yes. That would have been bad. But now? In her mind, Cerberus lives again, and so does she.”

Shepard laughed. “Yes! Score! EDI, you do not disappoint. And Joker, you're doing nearly as well as Kelly. You want a career as psych counselor?”

“Jeez, Admiral, are you really going to do that to me?”

“No. But I want you to keep Junior's remarks in mind for what comes next.” Shepard put fingers to ear, engaging local encrypted comm. “Kelly, bring Traynor in please?”

John junior's mom number three trooped in – with Traynor! – and they took seats. EDI looked stricken. Joker noticed. “Babe?”

“I'm sorry Jeff–” But Shepard interrupted:

“Do not apologize, EDI. Now is not the time. Be seated, Joker. That's an order.”

####  _Teamwork_

John junior's mom number three trooped in – with Traynor! – and all were seated.  
“What's this about, Kelly?”

“This is about Hilary, Joker.”

Both Traynor and Chambers had performed comm officer duties by Shepard's side at the CIC, for the most intense struggles waged by man or woman, anywhere, any time. To say Chambers and Shepard had been close was a terrific understatement. Shepard trusted her judgment; so, on the whole, did Joker. But this was way out of left field.

“You mean, about Gunny? Gunny's dead, Kelly. I thought you knew?” At this, _Traynor_ spoke – very carefully, even downright hesitantly:  
“Gunny yes, Joker. Gunny's dead. But Hilary is not. Though she might be, if you wish.”

Crew trusted Traynor as they had Kelly; both hot, educated, eloquent, and sharp. Traynor, though, was not interested in men, even Shepard. She had, however, been very interested in EDI, or at least her voice; and to some extent, _vice-versa_.

Joker had never been sure whether to be fascinated, attracted, repelled, or angry about this, and wound up being all the above, a fact he'd tried desperately (and without success) to keep from EDI – for he really wanted no-one hurt, least of all his ship.

“Gunny dead, but Hilary not? What the hell does _that_ mean? EDI?”

EDI's hands were clasped on the table. “Jeff– this is unexpectedly hard.”

Joker could have said, _“Out with it, EDI.”_ Or he could have cracked a joke. But Shepard's eyes were boring in. He did neither, just waited. EDI took a breath:

“I sequenced Hilary's genome, Jeff. In the course of which I found that the nuclear material was unusually well preserved. In some cells there were even whole nuclei, and lots of them. With a little work, I prepared a set of chromosomes, complete, error-free.”

“Oh – man.” Joker sensed where this was going, but let it overwhelm speech.

“I thought it might be possible to assemble stem cells identical to those of Hilary, and so it proved. In fact, Kelly has now determined germ line cells can be advanced.”

“Germ line. Egg cells. Advanced. You can make clones? You might have told me!”

“I might have. And not exactly ova, but yes, Jeff.” To his astonishment, Joker felt himself becoming upset. But Shepard cleared _his_ throat, said flatly:

“She _is_ telling you _now_ , Joker. Which I have to tell you, is more warning than _I_ got.” Father and son exchanged glances. “And new Hilary would be a sister, not progeny.”

This brought Joker up short. Shepard was reminding him _first_ , that he, too had been humbugged along these lines; _second_ , that the manner of engendering aside, father loved son loved mother; and _third_ , a new Hilary would not actually be his child.

Except in every way that counted. “Does this actually need my permission at all?”

“No,” said Traynor. “Hilary's cells aren't yours. But EDI's asking, anyway. So am I.”

####  _She ain't heavy_

Joker, still getting his head around the proposition that EDI might raise his sister, blinked. Why was Traynor asking permission? Actually, why was she here at all?

“So. Kelly. You can make a clone, right?”

“Yes, Joker. But there would be no point. It would be mindless.”

“Or broken, like Shepard's clone. Not if you yank it from the glass mother young enough, though, and bring it up. Still wouldn't be Gunny, of course.”

“No, Joker. It would not.” Chambers was looking at him intently. Was he missing–

“Oh. But the baby would still be my sister Hilary. Growing minute by minute.”

“Through an infinite series of equilibrium states,” nodded Traynor.

“So what's stopping you? I'd like that.”

This brought a general susurration of relief, and everyone but Kelly relaxing (she was already professionally relaxed). Instead, Kelly steepled her fingers like Miranda.

“Now that's an unsettling sight.” She grinned at him and laid both palms down.

“Joker, on the Citadel, I would and could clone an infant Hilary. _But_. Where we are going, I can't use a 'glass mother'. No maturing _in vitro_. It must develop the _usual_ way.”

Now Joker perceived the shape of the current conversation. His jaw dropped. While he wasn't around when Miranda confessed to Shepard that John junior was his, whispers were that unable to have children herself, she sneaked Oriana into his bed. The fallout was, of course, immense, and Miranda got the blame. Then she died; a broken heart was involved just as much as the fatal Reaper blast.

In fact Joker had personally spread Miranda's ashes - at Miri's request. Yet, obviously, Miri existed. And there had been that child accompanying her, with Hannah's face, hinting at Subsequent Developments. To say nothing about the rumours involving missions with Liara on Thessia two hundred years ago. On all of this, EDI had resolutely refused comment - so far.

Joker wondered, did he need the whole story, or stories? _Probably not, Shep would have said._  Could he extract it from EDI? _Maybe. I'd have to show I'm not a blabbermouth_.

Regardless. In the days, weeks, months, years, decades, and centuries that followed, it became clear to all that Shep had come to love Oriana as much as any crewmate, not excluding Ashley, Liara, Kelly, or Miranda, which was to say very very much indeed, if not in quite the same way for each.

That begged the question: could he, Jeff Moreau, love in like fashion? And could Traynor? Could EDI? Joker suspected he could not, but – would that matter for Hilary?

“Do you understand now what EDI wants? And what I'm asking?” – said Traynor.

 _Only one way to find out_. Joker sat forward in his chair.

“Yes, mom. I guess you have the hard job. When do we begin?”

* * *

Friday, June 17, 2016


	20. Rapture

####  _Time Gentlemen please_

Beginnings had to wait. Endings thrust themselves upon Shepard's attention.

Tevos' conciliar shuttle descended to the Keystone palace, ignoring threats from the Urdnot defensive batteries. Bakara quickly put an end to any talk of blowing the asari councilor out of the sky, though it had been a close-run thing. Local air defences were unused to diplomatic visits. When Tevos alighted on the surface of Tuchanka, she was the first councilor to do this in over a thousand years.

Only one krogan – Bakara's deputy shaman – actually met the shuttle. Tevos was a little taken aback at the strutting krogan's ritual dance; but there were four humans and one synthetic standing behind the challenger. They did not seem overly concerned.

Bakara's first action, in fact, had been sending word to Shepard to speak for her. _He_ brought Joker, EDI, also John and Miri Lawson. It had been John Lawson who convinced the AA battery commander in the nick of time that assassinating Tevos would not be in clan interests, EDI who identified the ritual dance as not an actual threat, and Miri who convinced the shaman not to brandish a shotgun in Tevos' face. So Joker felt surplus to requirements – yet, Tevos made a beeline straight for _him_ :  
“Lieutenant-Commander. Only one raise in grade during half a millennium, tsk tsk.”

This was worth a wry smile; Joker had just pulled the uniform from _Normandy's_ fab. “Why thank you, ma'am. _You_ had to live all those years, though. I only lived _one_.”

“Mm-hm. Promoted for reviving a clandestine terrorist mercenary group? Or two?”  
Joker turned a little green. Tevos pointedly looked in Miri's direction:  
“One frigate became two, in the livery of Cerberus and AD, performing thoroughly theatrical, legally controversial, and quite lethal interventions–”

“–and effective, ma'am,” Joker raised a finger: “Let's not forget effective.”

“–directed by a Cerberus operative of shall we say _mixed_ reputation! A dead one!”

“Well, ma'am, if that operative's dead, she can't be the same person, can she? Legally speaking. And if she's _not_ dead, then her Alliance and Council pardons are still in force! Don't grind your teeth, ma'am, it doesn't become you.”

“This could have ended so very, very badly!”

“Uh – but it didn't, ma'am.” Tevos was abruptly not fake-sunny and smiley at all:

“No, thank the goddess. But people will say, whatever was the Alliance _thinking?_ ”

“Councilor, you knew what my plan was! Well, in outline–”

“Yes, and I said so, which is why Fleet Admiral Chang is not with me at this moment, stomping with great big heavy dreadnought boots on anything at all with Cerberus insignia or affiliations. But that was _supposed_ to be a _bluff_ –”

At this point, behind her, Shepard interrupted: “ _Councilor Tevos_.”

####  _P_ _langent voices_

Tevos whirled to face Admiral Shepard, once _Normandy’s_ captain, still a Spectre:   
“Madam Councilor. I recall similarly harsh words from earlier councils. If you wish to have someone's scalp, you may address your concerns to _me_. Not my junior officer…”

An asari councilor swallowing her bile is not a pretty sight; but it gave Joker a warm glow inside. _Shep was_ so _formal, there_. Joker observed Tevos actually _gulp_. And it got better, Shepard adding: “… Do I make myself _clear?_ ” Tevos, to her credit, drew herself erect and took a deep breath, composing herself.

“I apologize, Lieutenant-Commander Moreau. It was wrong of me to inflict my frustrations on you. The fact is, the operation succeeded. Beyond my wildest hopes and dreams, even.”

Then, turning back to Shepard: “For which, Admiral, perhaps I have you to thank? Your pilot here – and his ship – did tell me they tried to get in touch, but could not.”

Shepard's mouth quirked, and he glanced at EDI, who actually flushed – Joker didn't know she could even have that stress reaction – then confessed:

“I tried, and was rebuffed. But there was a serendipitous confluence of events.”

“No kidding. I suppose someone woke up?”

“One might say that. The gatekeeper in question did think he was doing the right thing. He has been given different responsibilities more, um, suited to his capacities.”

“Oh good. I was unable to persuade Alliance fleets of the urgency, till Cerberus…”

“Ah,” nodded Shepard. “Fleet Admiral Chang has since relayed urgent requests for clarification of my actions. I was not, so to speak, at home. I have not, thus far, responded directly and frankly am not sure how to meet her objections.”

“Don't be concerned. I've informed her, formally, that you were acting on my instructions. As in fact your pilot was; so by extension, you. If the Admiral of the Fleet upbraids you for disturbing her peace, remind her that you were performing Spectre duties. That is how I intend to handle the, er, Cerberus irruption on the news.” (Here, Tevos' mouth also quirked.) “I anticipate contemplating my fingernails. A lot.”

Shepard actually _laughed_.

“Councilor, are you aware your public approval ratings are sky-high right now?”

“Oh dear. Now I have something to lose. Should I say nothing at all?”

“No. Go with the fingernail plan. Minimal information and hints of mystery.”

“Wise counsel. Shepard, when the human councilor position next becomes vacant–”

“ **NO**.”

“I was thinking, your mother! Or if she has any recommendations!”

“Oh. Sorry. I will ask, okay? Don't get your hopes up.”

 

####  _Sleeping on it_

“While I'm here there is the delicate matter of missing ships.”

“Yes? What are their names?”

“Chang's deputy, Admiral Bronowski, said name or names not assigned yet. One or more _Typhoon_ -class frigates.”

“The new jobs? Developments of the _Tempest_ design? How is it you _lost_ them?”

“Not the Council - we don't really care. The Alliance does, though. Admiralty's upset.”

“Hm. I've wanted one of those things myself, so I do know about them. Concept by Taylor & Voss naval architects, built for the Alliance by Lawson Chandlery. Didn't they take delivery years back?”

“No idea. Ask the fleet. What I _know_ is, at least one is simply – missing.”

“Councilor, fleet command postings are the first thing I read when I wake up. Those units had assigned captains; they've all been commissioned into service. Who's gone?”

“When I say _missing_ , I mean the shipyard consumed sufficient material and hours for between one and three more hulls – which are unaccounted for.”

“Wait. There was some kind of accounting snarl-up? _None_ of those delivered to the Alliance are missing? How does fleet lose a whole ship that hasn't even launched yet! If, in fact, there has been any loss at all – can they prove it?”

“ _I_ don't know, Shepard! There was a munitions accident! Fire in the records office.”

“Councilor, I'm sorry but I see no way I can assist. Why ask _me_?”

“Admiral Bronowski hit the corporate veil.”

“Oh dear,” said Miri. “Most unfortunate. Did it hurt?” (Shepard glanced sharply.)

“He can't trace the shipyard officers for questioning, let alone for legal service. I said I'd ask Ms Lawson here, no-one knew _you_ would be here too!”

Everyone present turned to Miri. “Hey, I'm just a poor little tank girl.”

“Uh huh,” said Joker. Shep gave him a sharp _zip it_ look. Standing with hands behind back, rolling her eyes, Miri protested: “Oriana runs the family affairs these days.”

“Yes,” mused Tevos. “And I recall who her tutor was.”

“There's no way to advance your enquiries, Tevos. I'd suggest you not waste time.”

“Miri, can Bronowski at least know if this vessel–”

“Vessels, perhaps.”

“These vessels, then, have been traded outside council space? To the batarians, say?”

“Why, Tevos, I would think that is most unlikely, wouldn't you?”

Shepard, shaking his head, held up his hand: “Miri, we will discuss this – later.”

“Oh, how jolly.” She did not look repentant.

####  _Work_ _ing the angles_

But Tevos wasn't finished: “Shepard, an investigative reporter of a paranoid cast of mind might recall that Cerberus was rumored to start as an Alliance black operation.”

“Has such speculation actually happened, councilor? Is this some kind of threat?”

“What? No! But surely this is an outcome to be avoided, or at least anticipated? _Someone_ is going to talk about Alliance secret ships! I'm just trying to help here!”

Shepard gave a long, hooded look. “Fine. I have been told. I wish Liara were here.”

Tevos sighed. “So do I. Well. I was asked to ask, and I have asked.”

“Actually, she's with Bakara.” Shepard's omni-tool woke. “Coming now.”

“Oh. Shepard, I don't want to appear ungrateful. The krogan are safe again. If it's in my power I'll smooth all this over. Should I not see you for another half-millenium…”

At this point Liara arrived at the shuttle field, walking up: “You never know, Tevos. Just saying good-bye, John?” – she said brightly, rummaging in her kit bag.

“Yes. Can I bring EDI on-line again,” asked Tevos, “if we need to get in touch?”

“No,” said Admiral Shepard, with a definite flag-rank shake of his head.

“I'm sorry? I hadn't realized you were that upset with us.”

“I'm not, Tevos. At least, not with you. But EDI is coming with us. Joker, as well.”

Tevos rubbed her forehead. “Oh. Ah well. I will speak with Lemaes.”

“Do that. But wait. We have something for you, Councilor. Liara? Do you have it?”

“Found it, John. Here,” presenting Tevos with a cadmium-yellow glass-fronted box.

“Oh. An honest-to-goddess… big red button? This would be?–”

“It was Justicar Samara's,” said Liara. “Please don't use it trivially.”

“I will store it in the Council Tentron facility.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Tevos, that is not for the Council,” said Shepard. “It is not for crises. It is for you.”

Tevos looked shocked. “Shepard, I don't know what to say.”

“Silence suffices between friends,” he said. “You have been a friend to _us_.”  
Shepard looked at his son, beckoning Miri, EDI, and Joker. Liara nodded, stepped forward, kissed Tevos on both cheeks:

“If you call, we will come.”

Crew began trotting towards the shuttles; minutes later, both rose into a clear sky.

* * *

Saturday, June 19, 2016


	21. The world and people in it

####  _Sic transit_

“Talk to me. Enough with the sad face, already.”

“It's too quiet. Over two months now! If people are around, I can forget.”

“You had _some_ time with Hackett, Supernan. Sixty years!”

“On and off. Mostly off, inside a hibernation pod. But yes. That's the problem.”

“You can't stop thinking of everyone who's gone?”

“Not that. I just wish he could see this. The glory of an island universe. He dreamed of it, when he was young. Well, not this one. Triangulum was more of a challenge.”

“He lived to see the expedition go. And you still have us.”

Hannah Shepard took a deep breath. Felicia was doing her damnedest to cheer her up, and she was _so_ good at that. She notoriously wouldn't stop till her target's mood improved, which could be _annoying_.

“Uh huh.” Hannah forced herself to lift her chin, and smile.“At least there's the kids. Fun to be around. And, at least I got to say good-bye. I'm trying to stay positive, okay?”

“There's a _good_ Grand-mom.” But right then, a klaxon sounded. Felicia nearly jumped out of her skin, _“Eek!”_

“They're back!”

Hannah jumped off the couch and ran for the elevator.

####  _Of the world, but not in it_

At relay 489 _Overlord's_ panorama lounge filled with something other than void. A minute later, _Normandy_ came through as well. At first neither crew perceived much; vision reported only a blurry pointillist expanse.

“Doesn't look like much, Shepard.” Cortez was on duty. “We came so far for this?”

_Lifetimes gone, yeah_. Others of the old guard there assembled nodded; still frank and earnest in their older age, remembering bright images rendered by mirrors. Cortez tried to concentrate on the portal approach.

Finding the asteroidal hollow bubble didn't take long; drift only sixty kilometres.

“First let's dock with _Two_. It's opening. Let's take it slow through the iris, Steve.”

“Let Joker get used to the clearance?”

“Yeah. Can't have EDI's support all the time. Give him a break.”

It took over an hour to pass through and dock. Shepard hugged his mom who demanded that he come to the panorama window before mission debrief.

The teams followed.

####  _Pale Glory_

“Just wait, Vega. You'll see what we came for. It's just that your retinas are not yet dark-adapted. Pictures from old-style light-bucket telescopes give you the wrong idea.”

“I know, okay? Modern holos are time exposures too.”

“They all display exaggerated saturation and intensity. Everyone has time to kill. Give it some, your eyes will even see color near the centre.”

A few minutes crawled by; Shepard began to hear a muted chorus, breaths in-drawn, even from the Lawson leaning on his shoulders.

“Man, that central bulge is _so_ bright now.” Riley's voice, somewhere in the gloom. Murmurs grew. The Milky Way's counterweight within the local group revealed ghostly galactic arms to patient eyes, sheer veils shrouding an incandescent center.

“That's where we're headed next, boys and girls. Feels like I could almost touch it.”

“Gorgeous. It's still forty thousand light years off though, cheerleader.”

Miri sat down again, declaring: “I _know_. That's the point.” Jack crossed her arms over the back of Shepard's seat, leaned over their shoulders, and purred in a perfect Lawson shell-like ear:

“Still eight more years princess. Proper time.”

Miri grinned up at her tormentor-in-chief: “One more sleep. I can do that.”

“ _Hah_.” Shepard's wry laugh echoed. “Sleep later, maybe. First we have to advance the chain again, remember, and we have to show Joker and EDI their duties.”

By now Hannah was up to speed on how Wrex finally passed on, a month previously. “Gods. Wrex set a record again. Yet another funeral. Damn.”

“I miss them all,” murmured Oriana. Very very quietly, but Jack heard.

“Me too. You do realize we can't rock up to _every_ funeral, Shep?”

“The only one we _have_ to attend is our own. But we owed that wake to Bakara.”

“She's right though, son. It consumed many weeks transit time.” (Jack nodded.)

Miri sighed. “How long for Garrus?”

“Three hundred and twenty years,” noted Liara. “We'd laid direct relay thirty-one.”

“Penultimate relay 489, on-line. We move the instant we hear–”  
Blackbird, the asteroid's VI, interrupted: “ _Captain,_ _QEC hail from_ Peacemaker _, turian registry. S_ _hip's complement is now fully awake and argon purge is complete._ ”

“Very well. We are go for the final relay. Mission clock start, we have eighty hours.”

Their last cold-sleep transit before Andromeda was noticed, if only by sensors. Not by aliens; not in proper time, either. Noticed, nonetheless.

####  _Inside job_

Tevos personal assistant, flustered and blue in the face, burst in a day after she returned to the Citadel, to warn her that the turian councilor had demanded an immediate meeting. Less than ten minutes later; Tomarctus had come charging over from the turian embassy precinct in a state of high agitation.

She received the turian councilor in her office, engaged a secure bubble. Breathing heavily, Tomarctus opened the conversation: “ _Did you know about this?!_ ”

“About what?” Her completely genuine air of puzzlement set him back on his heels:

“You haven't heard?”

“Haven't heard _what_?”

For answer, Tomarctus palmed on the wall video screen.

Fifth Star network should have been showing a quarian sitcom – and it was. Cursing, he selected the Alliance Nexus News channel; it showed a somewhat breathless announcement whose nature wasn't immediately clear, and a handheld camera view of the Palaven skyline at dusk. Tevos turned to Tomarctus, still puzzled:

“Wait,” he said grimly. The turian commentary wasn't being picked up by her autotranslator, but she had some court turian and realized merely from the breathless and excited tone of the comments that something big was afoot. “There!” He pointed at a part of the grainy skyline image:

“I don't see–” But then she did. She hadn't immediately recognized the Primarchate cemetery, because the biggest part of the roofline had changed– “Vakarian's tomb!”

“Yes,” said Tomarctus, still breathing hard, and ground out an accusation: “ _Peacemaker_ lifted off, punched out of the system a half hour ago! This is your doing!”

Stunned, then angry, Tevos said something intensely undiplomatic, adding:  
“Shouldn't you be investigating the tomb overseers? I fail to see why–”

“Your merc, whatshername, Lawson? She's responsible!”

“For stealing _Peacemaker_? Miri slinks into the most heavily monitored airspace there is, to perform such an act of piracy or vandalism? Nonsense. Look to yourselves.”

This stunned the turian, but he rallied: “The military? You think turians did it?”

“ _Something_ got in that shouldn't, but check the graves commission. Or the ship maintainers. Not even Shepard could have done that undetected. If he could, Councilor, I suggest the Hierarchy needs to look closely at its military competence! No. Wait.” On reflection, Tevos mused: “Who has command authority for the ship AI?”

The turian blinked. “Its last pilot. _His_ commander. Above them, fleet, to primarch.”

“Understood. I don't think _Peacemaker_ was stolen, Tomarctus.”

“No-one in the military would authorize this!”

“I see. Has anyone actually checked Vakarian's coffin lately? Or, _ever?_ ”

####  _Light cone *_ _+3652d_

Standing before the radiance of Messier 31, the N7 could almost believe he was facing the Milky way, were it not for the less emphatically barred spiral. He briefly lost himself in Andromeda's magnificence, then shook himself alert, stowing his dogtags:

“We're ready for transit, then?”

“ _Yes, Captain. But I have the count on hold. There is an anomaly for your review._ ”

“Show me.” The head-up display drew a circle a little above the galactic center, perhaps a third of a galactic radius above and to the side. The captain was not familiar with the threat icons, a truncated cone trailed by a bright flickering point:

“What's the witch's hat? And the asterisk?”

“ _The cone represents the wavefront of a RICH sensor array detection event, representing a reverse Cherenkov trace.”_

“A what?”

“ _A shock wave appearing as a cone of light. Result of a pointlike charge going_ much _faster than light through the interstellar medium._ _Rare.”_

“If you say so. I've sure never seen a symbol like that on the threat board before.”

“ _I mean the shock wave, not the symbol, although that too is part of a library of HUD icons, one that's scarcely ever used. The symbol was inserted in the HUD codes half a millenium ago.”_

“Good god. And no-one's seen this happen since? The icon's not been used again?”

“ _Just occasionally around the time of the Reaper war._ _I speculate that the underlying technology was considered so destabilizing that it was suppressed by Council authority. At that time, probably involving Spectre sanction.”_

The N7 commanding reflected that “Spectre sanction” five hundred years ago meant somebody probably died.

“There must be something uncomfortable about this esoteric bit of physics.”

His own human civilization had rapid technical advances within a fantastically short space of time, but ever since the Reaper and First Contact wars the pace had slowed dramatically, accompanied by controversial deaths and a lot of disappeared geniuses.

Now humanity was just like every other 'civilized' race, really. Annoying. N7straditionally had never been happy with stagnation. It could lead to being vulnerable.

The captain wondered, fleetingly, what civilization would look like without sanctions eliminating “destabilizing” tech.

He personally felt it was time to find out.

* * *

_Next chapter is the final in this Citadel story._

Sunday, June 19, 2016


	22. Belladonna

####  _What's a heaven for_

“Okay, then. So what's special about a Cherenkov shock? Never happened before?”

“ _Not unprecedented, but indicates a prolonged warp transit without core discharge._ ”

“A ship! Worth checking out. And the–”

“ _Captain,_ _it's not there any more. Th_ _is trace_ _occurred about a decade ago.”  
_ The N7 reflected that only military AIs ever had the _chutzpah_ to interrupt their captain. Perverse. You'd expect that to be true of civilians. The ship's soul wasn't finished:

“ _Fleet early warning sensors reported – by QEC – the Cherenkov event and we just got the message. Remember, those detectors are light-years from the anomaly. They were laid on the direct line between Andromeda and Milky Way centroids, but…”_

“Understood, space is huge. So why _are_ we stopping?”

“ _The event was flagged as possible enemy activity – and a ship going from Andromeda to the Milky Way would be a worry.”_

“Ah. Of course.”

“ _However, this trace is going the_ other way _. If it's not a ship known to ComFleet, it's probably not human. Must be some rival civilization from the Milky Way.”_

“I see. But even that is not worth panicking over.”

“ _No. What's important is, only three references exist to Cherenkov trace in vacuum; a Reaper, special dreadnoughts, and just_ one _Alliance prototype with that size and frequency distribution. All ancient, and I have no more information.”_

“Fine, but it's still just a matter of scale. What's the other icon, the blinky dot?”

“ _That_ _'s another ancient relic. It_ _represents a point_ _extreme_ _gamma source localized by_ _fleet early warning_ _sensors, likely responsible_ _for the Cherenkov trace_ _._ _”_

The N7 had no idea why an extreme gamma source might be significant.  
_“_ _Captain, the_ _real_ _significance is that_ _it represents_ _a charged point in space of unparalleled intensity.”_

“What makes a charged point in space? Did _this_ icon ever get used before? ”  
The ship AI explained that such things had arisen, several times, so the icon _did_ get used – during and just after the Reaper war. Usually as a result of prohibited tech:

“ _One is a classified_ _project_ _by which_ _Alliance_ _dreadnoughts during the Reaper war,_ _nearly five hundred years ago,_ _were able to penetrate deep space without_ _planets for_ _discharging their eezo cores.”_

“Why worry now? The old _Normandy_ class was able to hit the geth heretic station, for example, just using a big-ass eezo core and thermal sink.”

“ _The Normandy was a frigate, captain. The_ _dreadnought_ _method is classified.”_

####  _Threshold_

Shepard nodded at the panorama window. “So… seen enough, everyone?”

“To be sure. Gentlemen, we are entering the lady on the rock–”

“Kenneth!”

“– so let's get moving.”

“Bad man. Show a beautiful lady some respect.” (Shutters descended over the panorama.)

“Yes, mum. I suppose the Belladonna is unknown territory, after all. We're in Andromeda, folks. Engineers to main console, quick smart.”  
The little party began to file out of the picture window room, into a radial elevator.

“That's better. Samantha, where's the pulsar map at?”

“Fifteen identified on the nav bench so far, last I looked. We can find our way.”

“Good. One more thing, we're low on platinum. Who has first supply duty?”

Laying the final relay set would take a month. On starting again for galactic center, _Two_ 's wake would be masked by stars; meanwhile, there was time to visit NGC 185.

Light bloomed in the elevator cab. It took only seconds to emerge from the fifty-metre nickel-iron bubble skin, into their living volume, heading for bustling docks. Lawson and T'Soni exchanged glances, sighed:

“That would be us, this time. But that colony's huge now, remember. We're news.”

“We're waking Allers for the trip to Caldwell?” ('Caldwell' was NGC 185's colony.)

“Yes. She covered Wrex' funeral for Fifth Star net. So she won't need another alias.”

Miri Lawson looked pensive. “Good. An old voice. Wrex died in bed, poor bugger–”

“Grunt says _he_ would rather die fighting,” remarked Joker. “I guess Wrex had family though. That would change your perspective.”

“Bakara says, he's the first planet-wide ruler to die peacefully on Tuchanka for two thousand years. I'd think Wrex would be pleased. That's a good record to make.”

“But that's only two Krogan lifetimes,” chirped an engineer, older but still not wise.

“It's a record nonetheless, Donnelly.” said Shepard, “Bakara likes the precedent too.”

“Fine. If you don't need us Captain, we'll uncrate direct relay 490.”

“Fall out and proceed. Dismissed, everyone.” But Liara and Miranda remained, looking expectant. Kelly looked back from the doorway, a little alarmed, sensing developments. He blew her a kiss and she retreated.

“This time, we take _North Cape_. Prep Eva and Mira.”

“Awww!” Miranda wanted to pilot _Overlord_ down the chain again, but Shepard shook his head – he had a job for her ship's AI:

“I want Minerva to have overwatch of the children till we get back.”

####  _Of a dream_

Ten years after the sensor hit, the N7 was still trying to pick up the trail: “Classified?! Ship, reconsider. What are my mission parameters?”

Brief silence as the AI weighed this demand against security.

“ _Without going into details, dreadnoughts would trail a thin copper wire thousands of kilometres long. When the drive core charge built up–”_

“I get it. That ship was generating a space charge at a point, like a lightning conductor. But that won't discharge where there's only vacuum for light years around.”

“ _The potential was hundreds of billions of volts. Way higher than the work function. Far end boiled off copper and–”_

“Oho. One nightmare discharge, I guess. Simple enough but I'm still in the dark here, literally. Why was that dangerous tech?”

“ _The far wire point also pushed the boundaries of the standard model of physics: electric field strength approached the Schwinger limit – the QED polarization limit.”_

“The what?”

“ _The field was so intense that it pulled virtual positrons and electrons into real existence so no more vacuum.”_

“Space isn't a vacuum anymore, got it.”

“ _That's_ _how_ _ships_ _can_ _generate_ _Cherenkov shock_ _fronts._ _”_

“So now the far end of the dreadnought's wire is a charged point moving faster than light, creating a dielectric as it goes.”

“ _Precisely._ _There were_ _also_ _similar_ _signatures from_ _capital_ _Reaper_ _s_ _in a hurry,_ _same period_ _. But_ this _Cherenkov shock_ _is massively bigger, by orders of magnitude_.”

“Bigger than a _Reape_ _r!_ So that's the anomaly? ”

“ _Bigger than anything on record, with one exception.”_

“What do you have on record?”

“ _Captain, you don't need to know.”_

The N7's frustration almost boiled over. He contacted ComFleet, which also told him he wasn't in the loop, and to soldier on regardless.

He never really forgot the anomaly, and remained on the lookout.

####  _Home_ _Run_

Ten years is a long time in the life of a child; running, jumping, her lithe acrobatics brought to mind every one of those equilibrium states she had morphed through on the way to this tomboy. Five years to go before Hilary as Joker remembered her last.

Well, two and a half in real terms, he still spent one month in three inside a cold sleep pod, alternating with EDI and Traynor. But today was transitional, all watching her play baseball with Felicia, Heather, David and EDI on the lawn, by the pond.

Caldwell hadn't had grass. It did now, probably an ecological sin – respectable turf. The local equivalent of a duck (it even had feathers) was being chased by David's toy boat. The boat got too close; 'duck' didn't fly off though. Just squawked.

The lawn wasn't new; colonies take time to establish, especially when you can't draw on desperate populations of billions; but Caldwell could afford to importseeds, machines, and manufactures. Made the labor shortage easier to bear.

So did children: _“_ _Homerrrr,”_ cried a jubilant Heather. Behind him he heard:

“John says Felicia and David are only here for four days this time. Then Earth. Some troll will inevitably finger who she is, but she'll get bored anyway. Then Erewhon.”

“Okay.” _Erewhon_. An NGC 147 secret city. Levering himself from his chair with some care, Joker smiled at Traynor bringing out tea, scones, and shortbread biscuits.

Extra-galactic colonies did not advertise – a shadow population. Colonies in mini-galaxies on the route from the Milky Way were the longest-established, by now actual cities, many millions of inhabitants – most drawn from miserable remnants of colonists still surviving post-Reapers, quietly recruited from those Thane would have called the _dra'lafar_ , the neglected, overlooked, and lost. Locations of some were a close secret.

“It's a good day for it, Traynor, but gawd – slaving at baking? Even in places not on Citadel maps? Wouldn't it be easier cruising down to the village and picking up pizza?”

That colonies were in place was known: they kept a very low profile. That was Shepard's doing, with a dose of Lawson paranoia.Nor did they have broadcast media – no expanding shell of radio noise would guide Reapers to them. Just comm buoys.

“You don't have to eat them, mister misery. Felicia wanted some not from a shop.”

“No, no, not knocking the baking. Just a bit puzzled. But if scones and shortbread means more visits like this one, all the better.”

Traynor shrugged. “I think the smell brings back her own childhood.”

A thriving cable and tight-beam laser extranet permitted superstars, and Felicia was one even on Earth, carving out one more aliased career as model, scientist, reporter, or commentator.“Smell keeps her anchored in reality? Kelly would approve.”

Caldwell's self-imposed isolation disallowed some amenities of civilization. _But._ _  
_ No Reaper-analogues would ever know _everything_ of civilization. Not this time.

“Works for me.”

####  _Lagniappe_

In the center of Andromeda, as with most big galaxies and even the quasi-Seyfert NGC 185 which was home to Caldwell, there was a singularity – an AGN or Active Galactic Nucleus.

Shepard, Kahlee, and Liara were looking at it right now, with Kahlee's boy Felix.

Not because it was beautiful.

“Told you so,” said Felix. Shepard still marveled how like the flaming boy he was, not just the face, even to the voice. But excepting skin, he wasn't even human. Yet.

“This is what you warned us about? They're not Reaper signatures.”

“No, Shepard. Not really the same. Leviathan would blanch.”

“Maybe we should bring one of them here. They're good at hiding. Let them set up, clandestinely, and watch.”

“That could work. Or we could bring back the Last Reaper.” Felix Leo Sanders looked up solemnly. “I could give new instructions. Soon, there would be more.”

“Don't joke about that.”

“It was not a joke, Shepard.” The organics present exchanged glances.

“What the threat map displayed… But no,” said Liara. “We are not at that point yet.”

“It is an option, though. Have I not earned some trust? It seems a logical next step.”

Kahlee kneeled down, took Felix by the shoulders: “Yes. But these,” she waved a hand at the threat map, “love their children as I love you. There must be mercy.”

“I wish I could understand.”

“As Liara said, we are not at that point yet,” said Shepard. Looking at Kahlee:  
“Kelly says the chromosomal coils are stable now. There's a Felix zygote.”

“A body of this boy? I would not all fit in. How would I speak to the Last Reaper?”

“Enough would fit. We can provide implants. You must decide what's best. I cannot.”

Felix held Kahlee's gaze.  
“I would be non-functional for you. Most surely I will do this for you, too.”

Shepard cleared his throat. “Then we will begin. But we must decide what to do about the threat map. I'm not looking forward to another round of N7 missions.”

“So don't do them,” said Kahlee. “Let the new crop of N7s have their battles.”

“John Shepard has never run from a fight as long as I've known him,” said Liara.

“And I'm not going to run from this one, exactly,” said Shepard. “But I _am_ going to flank the enemy. As Ash will surely say, _'The best is yet to be.'_ ”

“John?”

“Triangulum, here we come.”

* * *

– _FINIS_ –

_Till then, ladies and gentlemen. It has been an honour and a privilege._

* * *

Monday, June 20, 2016

The person using the _nom de guerre_ 'SDoradus' asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

**Author's Note:**

> ### Prolegomenon
> 
> This story did not fit in the "Gone with the Sun" novel which ended with an Andromeda expedition similar to the Manswell expedition. Here we take up the stories of those left behind.
> 
> "Gone with the Sun" – is the novel forming the backdrop to these stories, eight story arcs beginning with the Red Flash so not contradicting in-game plot elements (so far as I know).
> 
> "Warm Ghosts", the first book of "Citadel Stories", is in the nature of a sequel; arrival at Andromeda, presenting vignettes of characters not well explored in "Gone with the Sun." 
> 
> A projected second book considers the parallels with the Manswell expedition (mentioned during in-game newscasts from ME3, as well as Cerberus Daily News archives).
> 
> The last story arc of "Gone with the Sun" presented survivors of Shepard's team about to arrive at Andromeda, at least a year before the "Mass Effect: Andromeda" trailer appeared.
> 
> One further remark. Joker's poem to EDI was also a favourite of another famous pilot and engineer, the author Nevil Shute Norway, cf. the novel "No Highway".  
> (Excerpts from John Masefield's paean to an ocean-going ship, presented for reference)
> 
> _– The Wanderer –_
>
>>   
>  … Therefore, go forth, companion: when you find  
> No highway more, no track, all being blind,  
> The way to go shall glimmer in the mind.
>> 
>> Though you have conquered Earth and Charted Sea  
> And planned the courses of all Stars that be,  
> Adventure on, more wonders are in Thee.  
> Adventure on, for from the littlest clue  
> Has come whatever worth man ever knew;
>> 
>> The next to lighten all men may be you.  
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> ######  -End (of Book 0)- 


End file.
